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falling-pages · 5 years ago

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Worth It: Mori x Reader 2/3

continuation of the ask I received a while back! It’s been crazy with evacuation, but I feel like I am getting back into the groove of writing. This is part 2/3, with part 1 linked here in case you missed it, and I am so excited for you all to see the plot twist at the end of this chapter! friendly reminder that this is an AU where Mori is not rich and he does not attend Ouran. That is important in this chapter. Enjoy this really, really long chapter! A little change I’ve made during drafts: the person who requested it has given me permission to name their character, so instead of (Y/N) that you’ve seen in the first part, the name oft he character is”Gina.”

Your Takashi didn’t take advantage of your giddiness or vulnerable position on your back. By looming over you on the ground, you knew he could have used his strong arms to pin you down and take what he wanted. You knew he wanted to. As you ran a hand through his hair and settled it on his neck, his pulse rattled cathartically against your fingers.

You wanted him. Pushing down that greedy voice in your stomach took all of your strength, especially when he pressed lightly on your wrist in response. You wanted it, you wanted him.

But you knew you couldn’t. You shouldn’t. This was your first kiss together, and your first kiss, period. You only met two months ago. You shouldn’t have these feelings so soon.

Takashi felt your concern and ended the kiss, briefly pressing his forehead to yours. His chest heaved; you found yourself shaking from excitement.

Your hands trembled as you tried to hold his. With a look of great concern he gently propped you up, searching your eyes with his to ask if you were okay. “Was I too forceful?” he asked, a blush burning his cheeks.

You shook your head vigorously. “No, of course not. It’s just...” You sigh. “Something I have to work through.”

He nodded, pushing himself away from you. From the shudder in his muscles you could see it took everything in him not to hold you. “Should we stop seeing each other, then?”

“No!” You reach up and cup his cheek, feeling your love for him welling up in your chest. “No, love, that’s not it. You’re perfect.” His eyes soften into yours, relief spilling out of his irises. “It’s my family. They think we’re better because we’re rich and famous, so they want me to marry someone rich and famous. Or at least rich. Someone with high social standing.”

A tear rolls down your cheek, and Takashi brushes it away, encouraging you to continue. “But I don’t want someone of social standing,” you whisper, your voice catching. “I want you! And it’s silly because we’ve only known each other a little while, but I feel like I know you better than I know myself. And there’s no one else I ever want to feel that way for.”

You crumple onto Takashi’s chest as he puts on his bravest face. Though swallowed up by his form, you feel anchored to the ground, your spirit aligned with his. It was rash to speak out like that. You were too young to think about forever.

You shook away from him, preparing your speech, only to be met with his kind smile filling up your soul. “Two months or two years, I don’t care,” he said. “I just want you in my life.”

Within your core you felt something tighten, hammering against your ribcage and lungs like a pendulum, strengthening your resolve. You sat up on your knees and gave him a quiet kiss, letting your feelings burst through your actions rather than words.

He grabbed your face tenderly, and everything inside you snapped. Screw your parents. Screw their expectations. Screw what they thought they knew, screw their haughty attitudes. This was your Takashi, and they weren’t going to take away the one good person you have ever met.

Let them disown you. Let them rant and rave about policy and goodwill and honor. Takashi was the only person of honor you had met in a long time.

As long as you had him, let them scream about what a disgrace they are. All you needed was him.

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And scream they did.

It had been four months since your declaration, and keeping a secret was easier than you thought. You never had to worry about your boyfriend spilling the beans; he rarely talked with you, much less anyone else. The real issue was keeping hidden from your family’s bodyguards and nosy Etsuko.

Takashi always insisted on walking you home after every date, but you made him stop a block away so you two couldn’t be caught. It wasn’t that you were ashamed to be with him. It was just the opposite--you wished you could hug him in the city square, or bring him home to dinner with your family. You wished you could kiss him whenever and wherever you wanted instead of waiting until the safety of his apartment to do so. One day, just one day, you wanted to live without constantly looking over your shoulder.

As graduation loomed and the weather got warmer, you looked forward to your little walks under cherry blossoms with Takashi. No longer bound by thick coats and scarves, you could really see his physique, enjoy the shape and outline of his abs and biceps. You wished you could see them fully, but the risk...

You wished you could bring Takashi over, but you needed to tell your parents you were dating a commoner first.

It didn’t go over well.

Not two words had left your mouth when your father shoved a phone in your face.

“Gina, who is this?”

You choked down a gasp at the picture of you and Takashi holding hands. It was taken from behind, and as your fingers ran along the phone case, you realized it belonged to your sister.

“Etsuko!” you roared, throwing down the phone.

The culprit, sitting across from you at the dinner table, only shrugged. “Why are you so upset?” she asked. “I’m just looking out for my baby sister.”

“Why don’t you do something actually productive with all this time you have?” you retorted.

Etsuko sneered as your father tapped the phone again. Another picture popped up, one of you and Takashi enjoying lunch on your first date. You looked at yourself. Munching on the crab, mid-laugh. You hadn’t seen yourself look so happy in a while.

“I’ll ask again,” your father said. His normally-tenor voice dropped deep into his chest, and the tone scraped against you like a knife. “Who is this?”

“My friend,” you whispered. You didn’t want to renounce him, but you knew what they would do to him. You had seen it happen before.

As if he had expected this answer, your father swiped to the next photo. Your heart fell to your toes.

It was a picture of you and Takashi kissing goodbye a block away from the house. At the sight of his fingers in your hair, your stomach curdled. His heat, his smell washed over you again. You thought you were protecting him by leaving him so far away. You had no idea how nosy your sister could be.

“Is that what friends do?” asked your father softly, locking the phone and handing it back to Etsuko.

You sat back in your seat, feeling like a boulder has lodged itself in your sternum. Icy tears rolled down your cheeks.

“Please don’t hurt him,” you plead. You cast your gaze from your father, standing stoically in front of you, to your mother, shaking her head with a frown. Avoiding Etsuko, you rest your eyes on your other sister, Kichi, silent until now. She raises her dark eyes to yours before bowing her head again. A thousand memories floated across her face, but she doesn’t say a word.

“Kichi, please,” you cry, desperately reaching your hand to your favorite sister. “You loved a commoner once, tell them it’s different, help--”

“Go upstairs, Gina,” you mother interrupts. With her auburn hair and light brown eyes, she and your father were only similar in attitudes: ambitious, prideful, and spoke with snakes for tongues. Never mind how they could make such beautiful music together. All other parts of their humanity were destroyed by greed the moment they tasted fame. “Go get changed. We’re having a special dinner tonight.”

You shook off the maids’ hands and climbed the stairs, throwing one more repulsed look at Etsuko.

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Despite the servants refreshing your makeup, the puffy eyes and red tear trails remained. You knew they were trying to be helpful; one had even brought a cool compression pack, but you didn’t want it. You wanted your family to see your pain, wanted them to see your tears. Maybe, if you made a big deal about it, they wouldn’t do anything to Takashi. You knew they could hurt him, uproot his entire life. They had done the same thing three years ago to Kichi’s secret boyfriend. But you couldn’t live with yourself if they actually did anything to him.

Tugging at your dress in the mirror, you felt confusion gnaw at your brain. It was a pretty outfit, but you thought it was inappropriate for family dinner. Shiny green material clung to your thighs, and though it was long-sleeved, a big diamond-shaped cutout clipped across your chest. Nothing too scandalous peeked out, but the cutout drew attention to it, inviting one to stare and imagine. It didn’t help that a ruby pendant landed in the middle of the area, cold against your exposed skin.

With your hair piled up on your head and silver heels strapped onto your bare legs, you couldn’t tell the difference between yourself and, frankly, a hooker.

Realization rattled down your spine. Your family was trying to sell you off.

A hazy memory suddenly cleared. You were only about seven when Etsuko graduated high school, and you remember watching from your playroom as limos surrounded your house, handsome boys her age in tuxedos popping out and entering your house. You remember how uncomfortable she looked in a strapless silver dress, slipping from boy to boy without spending more than a minute with each one. At the end of the night, your father announced her engagement to the son of some hospital management company, and she took that moment to publicly announce that she liked girls rather than guys.

But that was a party, with lots of preparation and glamor. This was only a dinner. A rock lodged in your windpipe when it dawned on you--they had chosen a groom for you already.

Looking yourself up and down once more, you tried to think of a way to get out of this dinner. The windows in your bedroom led to a straight 30-foot drop to the ground, and you didn’t feel like breaking a leg tonight. Even it you forced yourself to vomit something up, your parents would know it was a trick.

Just muddle through tonight, Gina, you thought to yourself. You’ll find a way to fix all of this. There was only one person you wanted seeing you dressed like this, but your parents had taken your phone so that you couldn’t even take a picture to show him later.

One of the maids knocked on your door, something about your family is ready for you, and you fix one last strand of hair.

They weren’t ready. Your family nearly died of embarrassment after Etsuko came out in front of all those important families, so they plan to just quietly let Kichi pick from a pool of suitors after she graduates business school. If they thought you would go just as quietly, they were wrong. There’s no way you would let go of Takashi without a fight.

Kichi met you at the bottom of the stairs, dressed very nicely but not nearly as provocatively as you. She walks you to the dining room, beyond words until you reach your chair. All she can do is press an apologetic hand against your palm before she takes her seat.

In the half hour you were gone, the servants completely rearranged the room. Double china sat in front of five extra seats, and you shivered at the new chair next to you, envisioning your future husband sitting there. Light glinted off the crystal wine glasses.

Musicians crowded into the back corner, a whole string ensemble playing what must be good music, but all you can hear is the blood rushing to your ears. Beside them stands a tabloid reporter, friendly with your family, camera and notebook at the ready. A man filed in followed by another woman, and he looked familiar, but you couldn’t place where you had last seen him.

You were beyond impressed. Without Takashi by your side, everything dulled, no matter how expensive or important they seemed to be. Even the swan ice sculpture paled in comparison to Takashi’s eyes.

As your family members walked in, you grabbed your father by the arm and pulled him to you. You dug your freshly-manicured nails into his suit, hoping to damage it or give him some semblance of your pain.

“Whoever you’ve chosen for me,” you hiss, pointing to the empty chair by yours, “I don’t want him. I won’t have him.”

Your father looked down at you, eyes calculating. “Oh, Gina, you’ve always been so smart.” His tone is light, not with happy pride, but arrogance, tinged with a hiccup of sadness. As he turned you to your chair, forcing you in, he turns much darker than you have ever seen before. “You should be smarter than falling in love with a commoner.”

“You had so many young men at Ouran,” your mother chimed in, gracefully sinking into her place. “Couldn’t you have chosen one of them?”

“They are all mean-spirited and entitled.”

“What about those host club boys?” she suggests.

“Yes, they are all of good breeding and good standing,” your father chimed in. “Even that Suoh boy, despite his maternal heritage.”

You grip your fork, remembering all the boys pimp themselves around like prize racehorses. “Those host boys are worse,” you spit out. “They’re attention whores. They prostitute themselves to desperate girls for status and manipulative satisfaction. None of what they do is real, even as they lead naive girls to believe it is, and I’ll be damned before I become a wife to any of them.”

“Oh. That’s not very polite.”

A cold chill rushes over your body as the familiar rawness of that voice thuds against your stomach. You know his voice. You’ve heard it chuckle cruelly in the hallway. It has been harsh and firm delivering answers in class. it’s the voice you feared the most would appear beside you at the dinner table.

You turn around as the Shadow King himself, Kyoya Ootori, enters the room.

Well. That was really long. Expect part 3 coming up soon! In case you missed it, this is a part 2, with part 1 linked here. Leave be a comment! I’d love to engage with you :)

#ohshc #ouran high school host club #takashi morinozuka #mori #mori x reader #ohshc imagine #ohshc story #ohshc fanfiction #ohshc imagines #ohshc au

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footballvillenation · 6 years ago

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Does Philip Rivers need a Super Bowl to finally get his due?

Rivers has spent his whole football life as an underrated, and oft-ignored, star. But he’s always gotten respect from those around him.

Philip Rivers covered his head with his parka when he watched the Denver Broncos convert a third down in the final minutes of a Divisional Round game in January 2014. A couple minutes later, he put on his helmet and watched the Broncos kneel the final seconds off the clock. Rivers jogged on to the field in Denver — helmet still on — to shake Peyton Manning’s hand.

It was the last time the San Diego Chargers appeared in the playoffs.

Rivers was excellent that day. He completed 18 of his 27 passes for 217 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions against the Broncos’ defense. But his 115.8 passer rating wasn’t enough in the 24-17 loss — even if it was better than Manning’s 93.5 rating.

Now 15 years into his NFL career, Rivers is eighth all-time in passing yards with 54,656, and sixth in touchdowns with 374. His streak 208 consecutive starts is the longest active run in the NFL and 11th-longest ever.

But every player above him on the passing leaderboards has played in a Super Bowl. Even Dan Marino — famous for a brilliant career, but no championship rings — made it to Super Bowl XIX. Rivers, though, has only made it as far as the AFC Championship.

That was back in January 2008, a 21-12 loss to the then-undefeated New England Patriots. The game is best remembered for Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson sitting on the bench due to a knee injury. He watched with his helmet on through a dark visor while Rivers struggled against the Patriots with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

Now, at age 37, Rivers is getting another crack at the one thing that has eluded him during his NFL career: postseason success. If he finally finds it, maybe he’ll get the long-deserved recognition that has also proved evasive.

Even before his NFL career, Rivers was outside the spotlight

Rivers began his career as the consolation prize for the Chargers after Eli Manning demanded a trade during the 2004 NFL Draft. The New York Giants sent first-, third-, and fifth-round picks to the Chargers along with Rivers to get Manning.

It was a fitting precursor of the career to come for Rivers. He’s been mostly outshined and overlooked due to peers like five-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, all-time passing touchdowns leader Peyton Manning, and all-time passing yards leader Drew Brees.

Eli Manning, who has 14 fewer touchdowns than Rivers but 61 more interceptions, is heralded for two Super Bowl victories over the Patriots. Ben Roethlisberger was selected 11th overall in 2004 — seven picks after Rivers — and also has two Super Bowl victories.

Even when Rivers had arguably the best season of his career in 2018, a young superstar in his division stole the spotlight with 50 touchdown passes. The Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes is likely the NFL’s MVP, but he and Rivers split their pair of regular meetings.

The most recent was a 29-28 win for the Chargers on the road in Kansas City. The Chiefs had a chance to clinch the AFC West with a win, but Rivers orchestrated back-to-back touchdown drives in the fourth quarter — capped by a two-point conversion with four seconds left to seal the deal.

“It shows you the type of quarterback he is,” former North Carolina State coach Chuck Amato told SB Nation of Rivers’ game against the Chiefs. “Who was the quarterback for the other team? That’s who everybody wants to be MVP, right? So he lost the game. How did Philip win the game? He had to score two touchdowns and a two-point play in the last less than four minutes of the game. Did he do it? Why couldn’t his competitor do it?”

Amato became the head coach at NC State in January 2000 — the same month that Rivers arrived on campus as a two-star recruit. Both Rivers’ agent Jimmy Sexton and Amato say the only SEC school that recruited the Alabama native was Auburn, but that then-head coach Tommy Tuberville wanted him to play tight end. Rivers’ father said it was the chance to play quickly that pushed his son to NC State.

No matter how Rivers wound up in Raleigh, it didn’t take him long to impress.

“There were two quarterbacks that returned — one had played and the other was a redshirt freshman — he was third-string behind these two guys,” Amato said. “The second day he was second-string. The third day he was first-string. In spring. Both these guys transferred because they saw they weren’t going to be able to beat him out.

“By the time spring was over, the offense knew he was the leader, and by the time the offseason was over, the whole team knew that he was going to lead the team. When he was a freshman. Philip is something special, he really is.”

He started in all 51 games over four seasons with the Wolfpack and finished his collegiate career as the ACC’s all-time passing leader with 13,484 yards. No player has even reached 12,000 since.

When Tramain Hall arrived in 2001, Rivers had already established himself as NC State’s star player. And when Hall first saw the field at running back and wide receiver as a redshirt sophomore in 2003, Rivers was a senior with the NFL on the horizon.

“He communicated with all of us really well, on and off the field,” Hall told SB Nation. “At times, as a quarterback, there are times when you can be like ‘it’s my way’ or whatever, and Philip was never like that.

“I ended up catching close to 70 balls and 800 yards from the guy. I don’t think I would’ve done that if I didn’t have a guy who relates to other guys on the team. That being kind of a father/leader really helped me as a young guy develop and understand the college football game. To the point where he’d say ‘Tramain, that’s not the right way to do it, I don’t want you to run the route that way.’ Those moments were a huge thing for me.”

But despite Rivers’ prolific career, NC State never finished in the top three in the ACC standings. The Wolfpack’s best season was an 11-3 year in 2002 that ended with a Gator Bowl victory and the No. 12 spot in the final AP Poll.

Rivers finished seventh in Heisman Trophy voting as a senior and couldn’t convince the Chargers he was worth taking with the No. 1 pick — even if he eventually landed there.

Rivers isn’t hunting for recognition

No team landed more players in the Pro Bowl than the Chargers when the rosters were announced in December. That’s a little surprising considering they may be the least popular team in the NFL.

The Chargers play in front of only 27,000 fans in their tiny temporary home in Carson, California, and even that stadium is often packed with visiting fans. The team has played at the diminutive StubHub Center, now rechristened as Dignity Health Sports Park, since 2017 after relocating from San Diego to Los Angeles. They’ll eventually share a nearly $5 billion stadium with the Rams.

But so far the move has only cast the Chargers as the little brother team in their new market, far behind the Rams who spent nearly five decades in Southern California before moving to St. Louis.

Rivers is one of the Chargers’ seven Pro Bowlers, along with running back Melvin Gordon, who admitted that he too was a little surprised that the Chargers did so well in Pro Bowl voting. He said even playing in San Diego, it was easy for players — namely, Rivers — to be forgotten.

“I think it’s probably the market,” Gordon told SB Nation. “He spent his whole career in the San Diego market, and I think people are just now starting to realize how much he’s been overlooked. Is that because now we’re in the Los Angeles market? I don’t know.

“But I remember not too long ago I was talking to him like ‘Man, I can’t even complain about not getting recognition because it’s been like that for you forever.’ He really doesn’t care, though. He’s just like ‘I’m so blessed, I get to stay out of the spotlight and be with my family,’ so it doesn’t really bother him. He just does what he does.”

But even if Rivers hasn’t received the love from the national media throughout his career, he hasn’t been disregarded by his peers.

“It’s just the outside world that doesn’t really pay enough attention,” Gordon said. “Obviously, here, everybody has huge respect for him, because we see him every day. But I think I really started to realize how respected he is when I went to the Pro Bowl for the first time. Just being around other players and talking to them showed me how much the players around the league respect him.”

Ask NFL players to name the most overlooked players in the league and it usually doesn’t take long for Rivers to be mentioned. In December, New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan was quick to bring up Rivers as a player who may deserve more prestige than Roethlisberger.

Rivers was Devin McCourty’s choice for the NFL’s most underrated when the Patriots safety was asked by MassLive a couple weeks ago:

“Since I’ve been in the league, he’s had multiple years where two of his starting receivers go on injured reserve like Week 3 or 4, and they pick up guys on Tuesday, and they go out there and play Sunday. And he gets ‘em right and they win games.

”Obviously everyone knows he’s a good player, but I don’t think he gets recognized for how good he is at what he does. I’ve always been a fan of his.”

Even notorious trash talker Jalen Ramsey of the Jacksonville Jaguars called Rivers “pretty good,” which is about as effusive as he’ll get about a player who doesn’t play for his own defense.

Rivers may be playing for a chance to finally leave a lasting legacy and earn the media superlatives that have escaped him for a decade and a half in the NFL. But according to other players, he’s already earned those.

Rivers would like to play in the Chargers’ new stadium in Los Angeles — expected to open in 2020. But into his 40s? Don’t count on it.

“I laugh when I hear Drew [Brees], [Tom] Brady’s already 41, when I hear them say mid-40s, I go, ‘Y’all can have that. I have no desire to get there,’” Rivers told Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer in August.

A ninth child is on the way for Rivers, who got married shortly after his freshman year of college. Family time is a top priority for Rivers.

“He always wants to be with us,” his 10-year-old son Gunner told Chargers.com last month. “Whenever he’s home, he plays with us and he’s with us all the time. Wherever we go out — we go all kinds of places — random people just come up and ask for his autograph and for pictures. It’s cool. But he’s always there for us. But when he’s home, we like to throw the football in the yard. We like to putt on the putting green, watch football, and do things like that.”

Rivers said he’s looking forward to coaching high school football one day, but it’s anyone’s guess how far off on the horizon that is. Either way, it’s no secret that Rivers won’t be around to lead the Chargers for much longer. So is the pressure on the team to get him that Super Bowl ring now?

“I wouldn’t say pressure,” Gordon said. “We want to get it for him, but we also want to get it for us. We want to be the first Chargers team to win [a Super Bowl]. So I think it’s just excitement. Pressure’s not the right word, it’s more excitement.”

And the team has a reason to be excited. The 12-4 season was the Chargers’ first with double-digit wins since Tomlinson’s last year with the team in 2009. Los Angeles is No. 6 in points scored and No. 8 in points allowed. The Chicago Bears and New England Patriots are the only other teams that finished the regular season top-10 in both categories.

The Chargers are a team with notoriously bad luck, but they’re finally get some breaks to go their way. That could mean the Chargers are primed to find some January success, especially because they’re good at just about everything:

The scary thing for the Chargers is that they’ll likely need three road victories to get to the Super Bowl. Los Angeles’ 12-4 record was tied for the best mark in the AFC, but because they’re in the same division as the other 12-4 team — the Chiefs — the Chargers were relegated to the No. 5 seed.

The first game on the docket is a rematch with the Baltimore Ravens, who traveled to Los Angeles in Week 16 and beat the Chargers, 22-10. Now the Chargers will have to avenge that loss after a cross-country flight to Baltimore.

And if they don’t, the Chargers are still well set up for the future with young stars like Gordon, Joey Bosa, Keenan Allen, and Derwin James. But windows close fast in the NFL, and a division that now has Mahomes leading the Chiefs leaves little margin for error for the Chargers. So a loss to the Ravens leaves a real possibility that the Super Bowl door slams shut for good on Rivers.

“He’s a great either way,” Gordon said. “It’ll be something they have conversations about when it comes to the Hall of Fame — for the first ballot or whatever — but he’s getting in either way.”

And he is. Rivers is a surefire Hall of Famer. But his career may forever remain in the “most underrated” category instead of the “greatest” if it isn’t punctuated with a Lombardi Trophy.

via Darrell Streeter https://footballvillenation.com/does-philip-rivers-need-a-super-bowl-to-finally-get-his-due/

#American Youth Football #American Football #American Youth Football Highlights #Florida Sports #Darr

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junker-town · 6 years ago

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Does Philip Rivers need a Super Bowl to finally get his due?

Rivers has spent his whole football life as an underrated, and oft-ignored star. But he’s always gotten respect from those around him.

It was the last time the San Diego Chargers appeared in the playoffs.

Rivers was excellent that day. He completed 18 of his 27 passes for 217 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions against the Broncos defense. But his 115.8 passer rating wasn’t enough in the 24-17 loss — even if it was better than Manning’s 93.5 rating.

Even before his NFL career, Rivers was outside the spotlight

No matter how Rivers wound up in Raleigh, it didn’t take him long to impress.

He started in all 51 games over four seasons with the Wolfpack and finished his collegiate career as the ACC’s all-time passing leader with 13,484 yards. No player has even reached 12,000 since.

Rivers finished seventh in Heisman Trophy voting as a senior and couldn’t convince the Chargers he was worth taking with the No. 1 pick — even if he eventually landed there.

Rivers isn’t hunting for recognition

No team landed more players in the Pro Bowl than the Chargers when the rosters were announced in December. That’s a little surprising considering they may be the least popular team in the NFL.

The Chargers play in front of only 27,000 fans in their tiny temporary home in Carson, Calif., and even that stadium is often packed with visiting fans. The team has played at the diminutive StubHub Center, now rechristened as Dignity Health Sports Park, since 2017 after relocating from San Diego to Los Angeles. They’ll eventually share a nearly $5 billion stadium with the Rams.

But so far the move has only cast the Chargers as the little brother team in their new market, far behind the Rams who spent nearly five decades in Southern California before moving to St. Louis.

“But I remember not too long ago I was talking to him like ‘Man, I can’t even complain about not getting recognition because it’s been like that for you forever.’ He really doesn’t care, though. He’s like just like ‘I’m so blessed, I get to stay out of the spotlight and be with my family,’ so it doesn’t really bother him. He just does what he does.”

But even if Rivers hasn’t received the love from the national media throughout his career, he hasn’t been disregarded by his peers.

Rivers was Devin McCourty’s choice for the NFL’s most underrated when the Patriots safety was asked by MassLive a couple weeks ago:

”Obviously everyone knows he’s a good player, but I don’t think he gets recognized for how good he is at what he does. I’ve always been a fan of his.”

Even notorious trash talker Jalen Ramsey of the Jacksonville Jaguars called Rivers “pretty good,” which is about as effusive as he’ll get about a player who doesn’t play for his own defense.

Rivers would like to play in the Chargers’ new stadium in Los Angeles — expected to open in 2020. But into his 40s? Don’t count on it.

A ninth child is on the way for Rivers, who got married shortly after his freshman year of college. Family time is a top priority for Rivers.

“He always wants to be with us,” his 10-year-old son Gunner told Chargers.com last month. “Whenever he’s home, he plays with us and he’s with us all the time. Wherever we go out – we go all kinds of places – random people just come up and ask for his autograph and for pictures. It’s cool. But he’s always there for us. But when he’s home, we like to throw the football in the yard. We like to putt on the putting green, watch football and do things like that.”

The first game on the docket is a rematch with the Baltimore Ravens, who traveled to Los Angeles and beat the Chargers, 22-10, in Week 16. Now the Chargers will have to avenge that loss after a cross-country flight to Baltimore.

And he is. Rivers is a surefire Hall of Famer. But his career may forever remain in the “most underrated” category instead of the “greatest” if it isn’t punctuated with a Lombardi Trophy.

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amorremanet · 8 years ago

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“what am i writing” meme

Okay, so, @bizeke tagged me in a, “what are you writing right now” meme, and I’ve been trying to figure out how I wanted to answer it because, for once in my life, I don’t have a huge pile of WIPs. Like, I’m deliberately trying to rein myself in and refrain from letting the rabid plot-bunnies have their way with my brain to the point that I end up getting nothing done because I get overwhelmed by how many possibilities there are and how many ideas I have.

Let me tell you what: as a Ne-dom (ENTP), this is one of the worst punishments that I could ever imagine and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, like, ever.

But I’m actually trying to stick to it, because it’s in the name of trying to focus on and do right by the project that is my main Thing right now, in basically all areas of life. Unfortunately for my desire for instant gratification, it’s going to be long. I mean, it’s a novel, so that’s part of the deal and one just has to suck it up and live with that, or just never write novels unless you can crank them out at a Stephen King-esque pace. Unfortunately for how much I like the community (and validation!) that comes built in with writing fan-things, it’s also original fic (which is also scary as fuck, but hey).

So, to get this part out of the way first: the “as yet untitled because I suck and titles are hard fml” project is a novel. It’s a superhero story with LGBTQ protags who are also largely neurodivergent, mentally ill, and/or otherwise disabled. The main story concerns a ragtag bunch of misfits — some of them super-powered mutants and some not — who come together in a new team and in just trying to do some good in the world for various reasons (and working together because they all realize that they can’t actually do that much on their own), they stumble into a bigger plot and wind up pitting themselves against a half-shadowy cabal of big deal neo-fascist supervillains (some mutants, and some not, though in their case, the non-mutants are generally treated like pets, rather than people and full team members).

ngl, the three biggest causes for this project were:

1. I needed a new project for my thesis because fuck this shit, I don’t wanna be in grad school anymore, and after having my project jerked around by practically everyone in my department at one point or another, the fanfic thing I settled on wasn’t working and I am really well and truly beyond fucking sick of grad school;

2. I had this one character in particular — the oft-mentioned mutant disaster, Sebastian — who I initially drew up for this game that my Sunday night tabletop group was playing last summer. The idea of there being mutant superheroes was similar, but Double Cross’s system is heavily inspired by the Parasite Eve series of video games, with a little bit from the novel that inspired them (by which I mean that the rule-book is pretty explicit about it; sure, they build on the world in their own ways to give players more options for their characters, and bring in some other influences, but they don’t hide that their primary source of inspiration is Parasite Eve).

Anyway, the Double Cross system relies a lot on character-driven drama and works it into the gameplay (one example is the “Lois” system, where you make up NPCs who help keep your character tethered to their sense of humanity, so they won’t get completely taken over by the shiny super-mitochondria that have gotten inside them and could make them turn into a monster). Additionally, I’ve been playing with my GM, Jake, since we were in high school, and I know that he likes having as much stuff to use against the characters as possible. I also know that it makes games with him more fun because he gets better ideas that way

(which is also why I knew damn well that the short, historical setting horror thing we did in January and February was going to be short, but still gave him a ten-page backstory for my French Jesuit priest that I could’ve backed up with sources for, “yes, this was actually a Thing in early to mid-17th century Paris” or, “yes, this was part of the process of becoming a Jesuit in that time period” had he asked for them)

Which, for Sebastian, meant that I started writing with the intent of it being three things

a brief apology note to Dr. Maeda (a scientist Jake borrowed from Parasite Eve because he’s a really fun character, whom Seb hadn’t really had an altercation with? But with his self-deprecating humor that almost no one else finds funny, Seb had accidentally made Dr. Maeda think that he’d offended him, and he wanted to apologize for that);

one letter to his older brother Max that would’ve been written while Seb was in rehab (which, in an idea that I straight up lifted from Augusten Burroughs’s memoir, Dry, had the prompt, “write to someone close to you and express your feelings about them and your relationship” and it had a lot of instances where Seb quoted something from Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis and somehow, whether fairly on himself or not, connected it to his and Max’s situation, in which he cast himself as a fuck-up on the level of Bosie Douglas. It also had a lot of snarky footnotes);

and one that he would’ve written to Max after the party’s first big adventure together (the major TL;DR point of which was, “ahahahaha, I was trying so hard to get my life together but oh no, shit, I fucked up and everything is terrible, you were right and I was wrong and now I can’t give you all the details of why you were right because the FBI says a lot of it’s classified but you were right and I fucked up and oh my god why” — just… with a lot of tangents and backstory and yet more snarky footnotes)

—but because I’m me, I quickly lost control of that idea.

I figured out the entire timeline of major events (largely but not entirely by hand, and in a few places, there is arguably too much detail, like how I know all of the classes that Seb took in undergrad, where it all fit into his substance abuse history, and exactly how that exacerbated his already Not Good mental health)

I did a lot of writing and a lot more revising and then more writing and then some research — like sketching out a list of TV Tropes that applied to Seb and his backstory, and by, “sketching” I mean that I listed them, and in most cases, I wrote up explanations for why he deserved the tropes or how I was trying to play with them

some of which were fairly brief (e.g., the explanation for his exact brand of being a Stepford Smiler is only 185 words, most of them actually being about how he made it to nearly 30 without having anyone suggest that he might be living with depression)

while others were kinda not (like, the 2,400-word explanation of why he got, “Angst, What Angst?” and “Conditioned to Accept Horror” on his list, which got listed together because they were part of the same larger problem and helped to fuel each other)

I went through multiple versions of all of those letters except the first one (and, in the case of the second, even made the drafts full-on “canon” things in their own right, documenting Seb’s ongoing attempts at paring a draft down enough to share in group therapy, because that was part of the in-universe conceit about why he was writing to Max in the first place)

I added other letters still (like, one to Pete that Seb was writing in rehab, with the in-universe prompt, “list 99 problems that you have that don’t have anything to do with your brother or his wife, because seriously? you’ve been going on about him so much, it’s starting to feel like you’re talking about shit with him in order to get out of talking about anything else in your life”; and one letter to Max that Seb wrote before his first overdose, which would have jossed his, “oh yeah, totally an accident, can I go back to class on Monday please” lie because it was explicitly a suicide note)

—and all up, by the time Jake decided that he was having trouble bringing things together into a larger game after the first adventure, I’d written about one order of words

”Order” here meaning, “a unit of word length measurement equivalent to the length of Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix, i.e. 257,045 words”

—which I exceeded somewhat but not by enough to make too big a difference, not least since most of these drafts will not be making an appearance in the novel itself.

So, I was like, “Well, fuck. I did all of that and we’re not even going to keep playing that game? ……Screw this, I didn’t do all that work for fuck-all nothing, I’ve gotta find something else to do with Seb and his story”

This first necessitated going back to the drawing board, scrapping a lot of the stuff that was directly related to Parasite Eve or Double Cross, or finding a new way to reconfigure it so that it wasn’t just me lifting shit from either of them

Because I’m me, that led to more and more ideas coming up, which in turn pretty much guaranteed that…… okay, yes, Sebastian got to be a POV character first, because in all due fairness, he was here first and the story wouldn’t exist without him…… but he’s not quite, “the main character” in the same way that, say, Harry Potter is (nor would he really want to be)

And TL;DR: this whole thing started because I wanted to help my GM make my character suffer, only for him to drop the game, after which I didn’t want all the work I did to go to waste and be totally meaningless, so hey

and 3. ……Well, I mean. I had a lot of ideas that I kept trying to turn into fanficcy things, but at a certain point, I just had to admit that they would have gotten into, “unless you can show why this is a legit interpretation or development for these characters, it’s going to be OOC” territory

and after enough rounds of this, I gave up and went, “Okay, fuck it, FINE. Rather than try to shoehorn any of my pre-extant fictional faves into these ideas that they do not actually fit into, only for the sake of writing them as fic and getting more or less immediate Validation, I’m gonna go write my own story! With mutants! And canon LGBTQ characters! And canon neurodiversity! Because FUCK IT, that’s why!”

I guess that one could say that I finally hit, “fuck it.”

In universe, the mutant thing isn’t being treated as an oppression allegory in its own right (I say, definitely looking pointedly at the X-Men, but not exclusively at them, because in fairness, they are so not the only guilty parties here), and the issue of metahuman licensing isn’t being used as a metaphor for any example of governments illicitly keeping tabs on oppressed or marginalized people.

Like, there are still major flaws in the system and how it’s enacted on people because it’s the U.S. government, but the entire thing is treated more like taking driver’s ed and going to the DMV because the fact of the matter is that we are talking about people who have shit like super-strength, telepathy, and heat vision, and it’s fair for other citizens to want to make sure that they can control their powers, and that they know and agree to abide by certain laws about how they can and can’t use them

(e.g., yes, it is considered rape if you telepathically coerce someone into sex. Exactly what charges you’ll face vary from state to state, but it’s still rape, and unless there are some seriously extenuating circumstances — like, say, if you have two teenage telepathic mutants who didn’t know that they were mutants and thus couldn’t control their powers, so both of them have broken the law here, but unless there was some other kind of force or coercion involved, neither can be held criminally responsible — you will be prosecuted if you get caught.

Whether or not you get caught is another issue entirely, and it’s a huge mess for a lot of reasons, but in theory, this is how the law works.)

The novel I’m working on now is also going to be the first in a series of four or five — give or take “Dunk and Egg”-esque tie-in stories, mostly because I’m still a Ne-dom and, even without all the world-building being set in stone at present, I’m already attached to and intrigued by several characters and parts of my world that aren’t part of the “main” storyline

(which is, itself, already an ensemble cast production, just with focal/POV characters for each installment because otherwise, I would probably pull a GRRM, get overloaded by all of the different POVs and trying to balance them effectively, and then either die or be photographed running around in a giant hamster ball because I’m trying to run away from my problems that I created all by myself)…

…but also partly because it is annoyingly easier to find potential “legit” places to publish shorter works and get yourself “legitimately” established by putting out some of those first.

You lot get three guesses each as to why I find this annoying, the first two don’t count, and if you guess literally anything but some variation on, “But, Kassie! You’re in the exact same TL;DR club as GRRM! One of your more popular TW fics was a 23k vaguely stream of consciousness beast in which you committed the same literary sin that you bag on Marcel Proust about all the time, because almost nothing actually happened”?

……then I probably love you for having such faith in me, but you have way too much faith in me because… yeah, no. That’s pretty much it. The “legitimate” “grown-up” publishing world’s fondness for short stories annoys me entirely because I don’t like being brief, or cutting things out, or so on and so forth.

Shit, I’m having enough trouble in Pages right now today, because I decided that this one beat in one scene of the novel was getting too far into territory that is actually meant for the chapter right after it, so I’m trying to figure out where to cut it, so I can then relocate the dialogue to where it makes more sense. Trying to be succinct…… is not one of my strong suits, period.

To be fair? The novel… well. It wouldn’t be a Thing without my years in fandom and my immersion in fan culture. It just would not be possible without that part of my background.

On one hand, that’s due to how many ideas I wouldn’t have been exposed to without fandom discussing them in the different ways that we have, and how many things I wound up reading or watching because I saw that other people were enjoying them and I wanted to know what was up, and then all the criticism that I saw from fans of said things about issues of how stories and media are shaped by the sociopolitical structures that content creators live with

And on the other hand, it’s because my story is a literary pastiche that is not entirely a deconstruction of the genre, but rather a recombination of different tropes and pieces of the superhero genre, plus pieces from other genres because fuck the idea that genres can or should be strictly delineated and kept separate from each other at all times that’s why, where I acknowledge that there is little room to actually do anything that is “entirely new” — both in the sense that we’re all influenced, both consciously and not, by everything around us, so you can make the far-end argument that nothing is “purely” or “entirely new,” since that would require things to be made in a vacuum, and in the sense that… well. I mean.

Come on, I’m working in an established genre that has had several different voices and perspectives chime into it in various fashions since it first got started with the original Superman comics in 1938 (and even that is arguably not the start, since the origins of the genre go waaaay the fuck back, and almost no one writing about the genre critically likes to let it just be its own thing without bringing up precedents like Gilgamesh, Heracles, and the Scarlet Pimpernel), and even if I weren’t also bringing in things from outside the superhero genre, I would have no significant chance of doing something that hasn’t already been done at some point, by somebody, somewhere.

Moreover, uh. I get why the Ang Lee Hulk isn’t everyone’s taste, I do. It’s not my favorite anything but any means, but I enjoy parts of it. But that being said, there are, in the superhero genre, certain expectations that certain tropes and story or character elements will appear in some fashion, even if they’re being brutally deconstructed, and Ang Lee tried his best to weasel out of a lot of them because he didn’t want his movie to have the, “stigma” of being, “just a superhero movie.”

Which is a shame, because a lot of his ideas about how he wanted to interpret Bruce Banner as a character, interpret the dynamic between Bruce and the Hulk, and so on? Those actually could’ve been really fun…… but he didn’t want to make, “a superhero movie,” so he ignored the value of all the shit that he should’ve been using to actualize these ideas on the screen, and he had to essentially paste that stuff on like, “Fine, here’s your superhero bullshit, you fucking comic book nerds”

Which all sort of adds up to, “I mean, I’m trying to challenge or play with some of these genre staples — and some of the more optional ones, I’m doing away with because they’re common but not necessary and I think they’re not part of the stories I want to tell, or they’re very particular to certain mediums that are not the one I’m working in — but…… fuck, man, it’s still a superhero story. It’s not like you can’t tell superhero-influenced stories without these things, but if you’re telling a flat-out superhero story, then…… yeah, you kinda do need to at least acknowledge them, and if you don’t have some kind of appreciation for the genre, then why the fuck are you working in it”

(And this is a brief aside to point out that Ang Lee isn’t the only content creator who’s been called a genius and has been guilty of going all like, “fuck superhero stories, they’re just pointless stupid trashy kid stuff for babies, lmao” while also being involved in working on one.

The list is probably even longer than I know, but I feel especially obligated to point out that Heath Ledger had nothing but disdain for the entire superhero genre before playing the Joker in TDK, literally only agreed to do that because Christopher Nolan was involved and Batman Begins had been noticeably “higher-quality” by most people’s standards than the Joel Schumacher Batman movies and the then-extant X-Men movies, and really only seemed to have come around about the quality of certain stories that he read as character prep — like The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs, and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

—and frankly, he and Nolan both seem(ed) to see those stories [plus a handful of others, in Nolan’s case] as special exceptions were, “not like all the rest of the genre,” rather than seeing them as indications of what the entire genre can be capable of.

Which is not to say that I acknowledge the validity of any other non-Cesar Romero live-action Joker, because unless someone really wows me or they come up with an idea that Mark Hamill could do live-action and managed to talk him into it, that’s probably not going to happen, and both Nicholson and Leto can eat me because they were just awful as the Clown Prince of Crime. Awful in different ways, admittedly, but still. Just. AWFUL. Absolutely abysmal.

It’s also not to say that the superhero genre is entirely awesome, since… lmao, Sturgeon’s Law, people. 90% of everything is probably some kind of bullshit. It can be entertaining bullshit, sure, but it’s probably still some kind of bullshit.

What I am trying to say, though, is that the entire genre is not special for having a lot of bullshit in it, because frankly, EVERY GENRE has mostly a lot of bullshit in it, so holding the superhero genre to some special double standard is ridiculous and elitist, and no, we shouldn’t look at things like Watchmen, A Serious House on Serious Earth, or anything else you might want to put on a, “special exceptions” list as being separate from the genre that spawned them.

They’re superhero stories. Barring some examples like Watchmen that have characters that were new when they first came out, these stories literally have characters like Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman running around, having adventures and fighting bad guys. Being of an allegedly, “higher quality” than any random issue you pick off the rack on Wednesday does not mean that they aren’t superhero stories

—and I realize that most of the people reading this already probably kind of feel the same about the elitist nonsense that goes on regarding pretty much every example of genre fiction, except for like big-budget sci-fi and fantasy that either sticks to very conventional models, and/or is written and/or directed by someone we might call an Auteur™, like Ridley Scott, James Cameron, or Guillermo del Toro, or like GRRM would be called if he made movies

……but this tendency grinds my gears anyway because the fuck what even, people. All of the genre fiction that gets bagged on like this has an established history with enough examples to prove that they are is just as widely varied in content and “quality” as yet another movie about a cis white dude and a cis white lady who want to be together but they can’t because of Reasons Or Something, wow such innovation, very forbidden, etc. etc. obviously NO ONE has EVER told a story like this before in the entire history of human storytelling, ha ha ha, GAG)

But anyway, as I was saying. Pastiche or something.

Still, it’s not a deconstruction properly because as much as I love and am creatively indebted to some of them — with Watchmen on the, “it has problems but I overall love it even if I don’t always agree with what Alan and Dave had to say or how they said it” side, The Dark Knight Returns on the, “Frank Miller can go step on a rusty nail and get tetanus, what a douchebag” side,

Deadpool in general on the, “I mean, I respect that you have a vision of what kind of fourth wall-breaking self-aware hijinks you want to get up to, and I enjoy it sometimes, but on one hand? For all I don’t agree with everything that’s said in Wisecrack’s “Philosophy of Deadpool” video, I do think it’s fair to say that you guys often have a lot in common with hipsters, and that you have the potential to do cool shit like Cervantes did Don Quixote, but that you often don’t go as far as you could with it, which can sometimes be kinda disheartening. More importantly, though, your vision is cool and has a place at the table too, but it’s not MY vision, so you do your thing and I’m gonna do mine and if I ever do get published, I hope I can meet Gail Simone because I would just die” side

and several others falling at various points of somewhere in the middle and shit — uhhh? It’s just??? Like?

I just… don’t… really… want to write a massive deconstruction?

I mean. I enjoy reading some of them (or there are others like TDKReturns, where it’s less that I enjoy them and more that they’re important to the genre’s history but I hate them and the only reason I haven’t literally set fire to my copy of that book is that…… shit, man, that thing was expensive, and if I set it on fire, I’d have to either buy a new one or get a .cbr file for free, which would be illegal and I obviously do not condone it, nope, not at all, nudge wink ssssh)…

and I won’t deny that they’ve influenced how I approach the genre as both a reader and as a creator (I mean, ffs, I have a minor character who was literally inspired by a mix of Rorschach and my desire to petulantly piss off every fucking dudebro fanboy who reads Watchmen and doesn’t get that Rorschach is supposed to be seen as completely reprehensible. Yes, he’s a different kind of reprehensible from Eddie Blake and Adrian Veidt, but all of them are still pretty reprehensible, that’s kind of the fucking point. The only so-called “heroes” in Watchmen who accomplish anything of major historical significance are either completely reprehensible, or they’re Doctor Manhattan and so far removed from their former sense of humanity that they might as well be on a different existential plane entirely)

……but, for all I enjoy deconstructions, I don’t want to write one, personally.

And anyway, the original point to all of this is that my story wouldn’t exist as it does without fandom because, on one hand, I got exposed to pretty much all of this through/because of fandom, or while I was in fandom; and on the other, the way that fandom relies so much on envisioning new possibilities for characters and stories, and combining seemingly disparate elements into new shapes, and mashing up tropes and ideas that don’t seem to go together but finding a way to make it work…… like?

That’s shaped me so much as a writer, even outside of fandom, that I don’t know where to begin finding examples of it in action, because it’s just everywhere in my writing tbh. And I don’t think that it makes anything I’m doing, “new” as such, because I’m probably overly aware of what most of my different influences are and how they’ve influenced me in which ways and so on…… but I don’t need or want to completely reinvent the wheel, I just want to have fun making up my stories and maybe bringing in something that other people enjoy and can read without feeling like their time was wasted, y’know?

…also, I will totally admit to certain fandom mainstay tropes and idioms having different degrees of influence on my story, and to deliberately trying to work in phrases like, “to toe out of one’s shoes” that are almost exclusively found in fanfiction because…… uh, I know where I came from, and while I might have various problems with where I came from on a pretty much constant basis, I still love and respect where I came from, so why not use some of our idioms and popular tropes?

………also? I’m doing it because I want to, that’s why.

Just like how there was no actual NEED, as such, for me to make Yael and Elizabeth a deliberate middle-finger to Marvel and their penchant for baiting Cherik, and then screaming, “OH WAIT NOOOOOPE, NO HOMO, DON’T LET’S BE SILLY, CHILLAX YOU STUPID FANGIRLS!!!!” — like I could’ve had them in the story and the world without doing that…

…but I wanted to do that, so I’m gonna do that, and since I’m not violating any copyright or intellectual property laws because what I’m doing doesn’t rip off anything more than general concepts that Marvel has no exclusive or protected ownership of, and even if it did, what I’m doing would count as a commentary or satire and be protected by the First Amendment and the US Supreme Court, therefore no one can do shit about shit to stop me from having my two badass older lady lesbians who are, in fact, married and are co-headmistresses of their school for the exceptionally gifted. Nah nah nah nah nah nah, ha ha ha ha ha ha.

(……………I am a serious adult writer who takes her writing seriously. …also, I’m sorry, and I’m done now, and thank you for reading if you have, and if you got to this finishing point, please go help yourself to like…… a cookie. Or five. Or idk, any kind of treat you want, I don’t know you and I’m not your boss, so I can’t guess what your idea of a treat is much less tell you what to do. Okay, I’m done now, bye)

ETA: ……oh, and I guess that I tag whoever wants to do this themself, because I just spent a few hours writing it and I don’t wanna look at it anymore, not even to pass the meme on, so…… heeeey, free invite, you can do a meme just because you want to and then blame me

#bizeke #ella tag #memes for ts #mine: writing #that story with the mutants that i should find a working title for fml #opinions for ts #i wouldn't say that i'm being exactly critical of marvel or dc or anything that i mention by name in this #but i'm not being NOT-critical either bc i'm talking about how they all influenced my approach to the superhero genre & writing in it #and since i perpetually have some kind of criticism or some kind of problem with pretty much everything……… well.#things that vaguely resemble criticism do kinda tend to come up a bit #……also i yell for a while about the elitist bullshit that most genre fiction is subjected to and how much i hate it #because it's always a good time to hate elitist bullshit

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unclescurvy · 8 years ago

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2017 NFL MOCK DRAFT

April 23, 2017

This is a five-round mock draft with projected trades. This will be updated at least once more before the draft.

ROUND ONE

1. Cleveland – DE/OLB Myles Garrett, Texas A&M

This is becoming the surest of things. Myles Garrett is probably the best player in this draft, and the Browns happen to need his services badly. The rumors of a Trubisky pick here are laughable.

2. Cleveland (PROJ. TRADE W/SF) – QB Mitchell Trubisky, North Carolina

What do you do when you covet two players in the first round and you’ve got loads and loads of ammunition? You unload and go get your guys. The Browns make a blockbuster deal with the Niners (# 12, 33, and 52 this year, plus a 2nd round selection in 2018) and go secure the quarterback they covet: hometown boy Mitchell Trubisky. Whether or not he deserves to be drafted here doesn’t matter. The Browns know the only way they can be sure to get him is by securing the first two picks.

3. Carolina (PROJ. TRADE W/CHI) – RB Leonard Fournette, LSU

The Panthers extended Jonathan Stewart’s contract by a year, but he’s never been someone the team can rely on to stay healthy for an entire season. Carolina has fallen in love with Fournette, and they have to get ahead of Jacksonville to secure him (Tom Coughlin has made multiple statements about improving the running game there). They trade next year’s first rounder as well as their top 2nd-round pick to move from 8 to 3.

4. Jacksonville – DE/OLB Solomon Thomas, Stanford

The Jags just barely miss out on Leonard Fournette, who would have been their choice, so they go back to the drawing board. Jacksonville was in the bottom half of the league in sacks for the second straight year. Solomon Thomas has the prototypical size and speed for the Jags’ defense, and he could make an immediate impact.

5. Tennessee (THRU LA RAMS) – SS Jamal Adams, LSU

Pure safeties just don’t get drafted higher than #5. Period. I don’t see Jamal Adams as the sort of once-in-a-lifetime athlete who would change that history. The Titans signed Jonathan Cyprien to play the strong side in free agency, but he could be moved to free safety to accommodate Jamal Adams. This guy has Rodney Harrison-like potential to be one of the very best safeties in the league for a long time… but I just don’t see him going any higher than this.

6. NY Jets – FS Malik Hooker, Ohio State +

If the Jets don’t fall in love with any of the quarterbacks, they will roll with Josh McCown, Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg and select the promising ball-hawk Malik Hooker. He doesn’t have much to offer in the run game, but the Jets are more concerned with finding someone to stop Rob Gronkowski and the lesser Gronk clones that are cluttering the league. Hooker has a nose for the ball like few others, and he could lead the league in interceptions within the next few years. Or he could be the biggest bust of this year’s class.

7. LA Chargers – CB Marshon Lattimore, Ohio State +

The Chargers made a great free agent pickup last year in former-Packer Casey Hayward. He and Jason Verrett may form a strong partnership in 2017, but Verrett has had a lot of trouble staying healthy. And if the team opts to keep him in 2018, he’ll cost them around $8 million. It may be time for the first cornerback to come off the board here: Marshon Lattimore has spent the off-season separating himself from a fine, fine group of corners as the very best of the crop.

8. Chicago (PROJ. TRADE W/CAR) – DT Jonathan Allen, Alabama +

The Bears need defense more than anything, and one of this year’s best college defenders falls into their lap. Rumors of chronic shoulder injuries drop a man with top-three talent down to #8, but he’s certainly worth the risk here. Jonathan Allen is the sort of talent the entire city can rally around.

9. Cincinnati – DE Derek Barnett, Tennessee

The Bengals gave up on the Margus Hunt experiment, and they’re considering what life will look like without Michael Johnson, whose contract will expire next year. Barnett helps the team improve their defensive end rotation for this year and perhaps they’ve found their starter next to Carlos Dunlap next year.

10. Buffalo – TE O.J. Howard, Alabama

The Bills have almost no receiving talent beyond the oft-injured Sammy Watkins. He desperately needs help. Howard might be the most well-rounded tight end to come on the scene since Jason Witten. He’ll help in all aspects of the offense, but his receiving skills will be most needed.

11. New Orleans – RB/WR Christian McCaffrey, Stanford

This would be the sort of WTF? Moment that makes drafts interesting, wouldn’t it? The Saints need defense and they need it badly, but instead they bolster their offense with the obscene athleticism of Christian McCaffrey. Mark Ingram remains the lead back in 2017, but his contract is voidable next year. And there isn’t much talent behind him. This pick makes more sense than it does on first glance.

12. San Francisco (PROJ. TRADE W/CLE THRU PHI) – QB Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech

The Niners trade down with Cleveland and select their quarterback of the future. Many, many teams are crushed that they couldn’t pull the trigger on Mahomes themselves. He’ll have to sit behind Brian Hoyer for at least half a season as the team breaks down Mahomes’ awful technique, and they’ll teach him how to be a pro. He seems willing and eager to learn. His natural gifts but unwieldy technique remind me of Brett Favre coming out of school. He needed time to develop too.

13. Houston (PROJ. TRADE W/ARZ) – QB Deshaun Watson, Clemson

Houston is SO CLOSE to making a serious run in the playoffs, they know they’re just a quarterback away. They can’t go into this season with Tom Savage as their uncontested signal caller, and they waited too long for the guy they really wanted, Pat Mahomes. They package their 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks to go up to Arizona’s spot and grab Deshaun Watson. What he lacks in pinpoint accuracy and arm strength, he makes up for in leadership and heart. He makes everyone around him better. That’s a rare quality.

14. Philadelphia (THRU MIN) – CB Tre’Davious White, LSU

The Eagles are said to covet a cornerback at this spot, and they’ll practically have their pick of the litter. Who knows if they’ll covet the speed of an Adoree Jackson or the size of a Kevin King. On my board, Tre’Davious White is the 2nd best CB available, so here he sits. He’s part of the great lineage of LSU cornerbacks, and he’s got the skills to play man or cover at an elite level.

15. Indianapolis – RB Dalvin Cook, Florida State *

The Colts cannot take the risk of going into another season with Frank Gore as their starter. He served admirably last year, but his days of greatness are long behind him. Dalvin Cook is said to have less-than-admirable athleticism despite his college numbers and some behavioral issues worthy of concern, but the Colts take a risk on him.

16. Baltimore - WR Corey Davis, Western Michigan

The Ravens lost Steve Smith to retirement and they are cautiously optimistic that a late-season surge from Breshad Perriman could signify improve play in 2017. However, wide receiver has been an anemic position for the team practically since they left Cleveland for Baltimore. Joe Flacco needs targets – especially scoring threats. Corey Davis is a touchdown magnet – a perfect addition to Flacco’s choice of targets.

17. Washington – CB Gareon Conley, Ohio State

The Redskins took quite a few blows this off-season, losing both key players and key coaches. They were also fairly quite in free agency. They need to draft carefully. They’ll take a flyer on speedy corner Gareon Conley to pair with Josh Norman. Bashaud Breeland got burned repeatedly last year and may have to transition to free safety, and Kendall Fuller is better off as a nickel.

18. Tennessee – WR Mike Williams, Clemson

The Titans took big risks with their receivers in 2016 by trading Dorial Green-Beckham to Philadelphia, cutting Justin Hunter and letting Andre Johnson retire mid-season. This became a team built on the run and the short passing game thanks largely to 32-year old tight end Delanie Walker. The team clearly needs another option in the passing game. Mike Williams may be the best deep-ball receiver in this year’s class. He’s got certain Dez Bryant qualities without the problem attitude.

19. Tampa Bay – OLB Haason Reddick, Temple

The Bucs made quite a few splashes in free agency this year, but they’ve neglected their linebacking group, which is thin at best. Lavonte David is as good as they come on the weak side, Kwon Alexander showed some promise in the middle, but the strong side is a gaping hole. Enter Combine darling Haason Reddick. His ascent has been staggering, and if he lands in the top 20, you’ll probably hear me cheering from wherever you happen to be watching the draft.

20. Denver – OT Garett Bolles, Utah

Right tackle Donald Stephenson graded out as the worst at his position among starters last year. And as of this moment, he’s slated to start again. That cannot happen. The Broncos must upgrade their o-line immediately, and Bolles might help. He’s only played top-tier college football for one year so he might completely flop in the pros, but his off-season workouts and prototypical body type for the position suggest he just might make it as an NFL tackle yet. He and a rejuvenated Ty Sambrailo will fight for the two starting spots.

21. Detroit – TE David Njoku, Miami

The Lions have made waves this off-season about upgrading their tight end position, and if Njoku falls to them, he will almost certainly be their pick. He’s an excellent receiver and a willing - if pedestrian - blocker. Detroit forgoes the option on Eric Ebron next year and hands the starting role to Njoku, but in the meantime they make a forbidding duo.

22. Miami – DE Charles Harris, Missouri

The Dolphins are a better team than most folks outside Miami know. But with the release of Mario Williams, they’re left with a question mark at defensive end. Andre Branch was re-signed in free agency, and William Hayes came over from the Rams (presumably to be closer to the mermaids). But Hayes will be 32 when camp starts, and he can’t be counted on beyond this year. Charles Harris might be a little small to take on the punishment of playing a 4-3 end in the NFL, but the trainers will work on bulking him up for the campaigns ahead.

23. NY Giants – OLB Jarrad Davis, Florida +

Word on the street is that Jarrad Davis is a hot name among scouts and GMs. He performed quite well at the Combine, and he’s been killing it at his individual meetings. If he lasts this long, the Giants will pounce on him; they may even be willing to trade up to get him. The team certainly needs linebacking help.

24. Oakland – CB Adoree’ Jackson, USC

Cornerback D.J. Hayden split in free agency this year and Travis Carrie will be up for it in 2018. And honestly no Raiders CB was especially great in 2017 despite the team’s record. Can you imagine the old Al Davis Raiders passing up a speedster like Adoree’ Jackson?

25. Arizona (PROJ. TRADE W/HOU) - QB Deshone Kizer, Notre Dame

The Cardinals trade back with the Texans and still get the developmental quarterback they were looking for. Kizer has the prototypical NFL build with a strong-enough arm, but his accuracy and footwork are a mess. A year or two behind Carson Palmer and learning from Bruce Arians will be a very good thing for him.

26. Seattle - CB Kevin King, Washington

The Seahawks need offensive line help desperately, so perhaps they’ll do the right thing and select Forrest Lamp or Garett Bolles here, but the rumor is they covet the hometown gargantuan cornerback Kevin King. He fits right in with Seattle’s tradition of playing massive corners to counteract the effects of big receivers, and King can do that. But if he gets matched up with a quick smaller wide out, his lack of fluidity will be exposed.

27. Kansas City - WR John Ross, Washington +

The Chiefs need receivers. This much is true. And John Ross has shown that he’s worthy of a first-round selection. But I’m having trouble imagining the diminutive Ross on the same team as the smaller-than-ideal Jeremy Maclin and Tyreek Hill. But I’m also having trouble seeing the Chiefs pass on him if he’s available. The Lollipop Guild may do wonders in K.C., who knows!

28. Dallas – DE DeMarcus Walker, Florida State

The Cowboys are rumored to be pretty committed to upgrading their defensive line this year. Walker would be a great player to fall to them. He was amazingly productive against top-level competition throughout his college career. He’s probably the most NFL-ready defensive end available this year, and his positive attitude may be the very thing that will turn around a guy like Randy Gregory.

29. Green Bay – SS Jabrill Peppers, Michigan

One of the biggest questions of the draft: Where will the celebrated Jabrill Peppers end up? He played practically every position on defense for Michigan (and some not on defense). Plenty of teams have a desire for a player who can fill more than one spot (the Pats, the Cardinals, the Rams, etc). The Packers lost Swiss army knife Micah Hyde to free agency, and Peppers might be the guy to replace him.

30. Pittsburgh – DE/OLB Takkarist McKinley, UCLA

When Pittsburgh re-signed James Harrison, it was yet another acknowledgement that they haven’t been able to replace him despite their many attempts. The Jarvis Jones experiment is over; time to start the Takkarist McKinley experiment. Takk is a raw lump of clay, but he’s natural gifts are significant. He’s just got a nose for the quarterback and the will to get there. Playing in a rotation with Harrison would be a great thing for him as he learns to control his body and bait his blockers.

31. Atlanta - DE/OLB Jordan Willis, Kansas State

Not many mock drafters have Willis going in the first round, but there are rumors that he may go as high as #23 to the Giants. It’s been quite a run on pass-rushers in the first round, so the Falcons feel lucky they can snag him here. Willis was a Senior Bowl standout, and when coaches went back to look at his tape after that, they finally noticed that he’s one of the hard-working, craftiest ends in the college game. His upside is tremendous as he’s constantly adding to his bag of tricks.

32. New England (PROJ. TRADE W/NO THRU NE) - OT Ryan Ramczyk, Wisconsin +

The Patriots dealt New Orleans this pick in the Brandin Cooks deal, and I predict they’ll get it right back when they deal CB Malcolm Butler to New Orleans on draft day. With the pick, the Pats bolster their offensive line. New England is scheduled to have tackles Nate Solder and LaAdrian Waddle hit free agency next year. With the cutting of Sebastian Vollmer, that leaves the team quite vulnerable at such a key position. They roll the dice on the one-year-wonder Ryan Ramczyk. They’ll give him a year of development to see if he can take over for Solder. Remember: Matt Light and Nate Solder were on the team together in 2011. The Pats do draft replacements early.

ROUND TWO

33. San Francisco (PROJ. TRADE W/CLE) - FS Budda Baker, Washington

34. San Francisco - SS Obi Melifonwu, Connecticut

35. Jacksonville – G Forrest Lamp, Western Kentucky

36. Chicago – CB Chidobe Awuzie, Colorado

37. LA Rams – DE Taco Charlton, Michigan

38. LA Chargers – QB Davis Webb, California

39. NY Jets – TE Evan Engram, Ole Miss

40. Chicago (PROJ. TRADE W/CAR) – OT Cam Robinson, Alabama

41. Cincinnati – ILB Reuben Foster, Alabama +*

42. New Orleans – CB Marlon Humphrey, Alabama

43. Philadelphia – RB Alvin Kamara, Tennessee

44. Buffalo – CB Quincy Wilson, Florida

45. Arizona – ILB Zach Cunningham, Vanderbilt

46. Indianapolis – OLB T.J. Watt, Wisconsin

47. Baltimore – RB Joe Mixon, Oklahoma *

48. Minnesota – OLB Ryan Anderson, Alabama

49. Washington – DT/NT Caleb Brantley, Florida

50. Tampa Bay – WR Zay Jones, East Carolina

51. Denver – ILB Raekwon McMillan, Ohio State

52. San Francisco (PROJ. TRADE W/CLE THRU TEN) – CB Sidney Jones, Washington +

53. Detroit – OLB Tyus Bowser, Houston

54. Miami – DT Carlos Watkins, Clemson

55. NY Giants – DE Tanoh Kpassagnon, Villanova

56. Oakland – DT Malik McDowell, Michigan State

57. Arizona (PROJ. TRADE W/HOU) – CB Fabian Moreau, UCLA +

58. Seattle – OT Dion Dawkins, Temple

59. Kansas City – G Dan Feeney, Indiana

60. Dallas – SS Justin Evans, Texas A&M

61. Green Bay – OLB Tim Williams, Alabama *

62. Pittsburgh – CB Teez Tabor, Florida

63. Atlanta – DT Dalvin Tomlinson, Alabama

64. Carolina (THRU NE) - DE Carl Lawson, Auburn +

ROUND THREE

65. Cleveland – WR Cooper Kupp, Eastern Washington

66. San Francisco – WR Chris Godwin, Penn State

67. Chicago – WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, USC

68. Jacksonville – TE Jake Butt, Michigan +

69. LA Rams – WR Curtis Samuel, Ohio State

70. NY Jets – WR DeDe Westbrook, Oklahoma

71. LA Chargers – FS Marcus Williams, Utah

72. New England (THRU CAR) – CB Cordrea Tankersley, Clemson

73. Cincinnati – RB D’Onta Foreman, Texas

74. Baltimore (THRU PHI) – C Ethan Pocic, LSU

75. Buffalo – DE Trey Hendrickson, Florida Atlantic

76. New Orleans – DE/OLB Dawuane Smoot, Illinois

77. Arizona – G Dorian Johnson, Pittsburgh

78. Baltimore – CB Jourdan Lewis, Michigan

79. Minnesota – RB Brian Hill, Wyoming

80. Indianapolis – OT Antonio Garcia, Troy

81. Washington – RB Samaje Perine, Oklahoma

82. Denver – RB Jeremy McNichols, Boise State

83. Tennessee – CB Ahkello Witherspoon, Colorado

84. Tampa Bay – FS Desmond King, Iowa

85. Detroit – DT Chris Wormley, Michigan

86. Minnesota (THRU MIA) – OT Taylor Moton, Western Michigan

87. NY Giants – RB Kareem Hunt, Toledo

88. Oakland – DT Larry Ogunjobi, North Carolina-Charlotte

89. Arizona (PROJ. TRADE W/HOU) – ILB Anthony Walker, Northwestern

90. Seattle – SS Eddie Jackson, Alabama +

91. Kansas City – ILB Kendell Beckwith, LSU +

92. Dallas – DT Montravius Adams, Auburn

93. Green Bay – G Isaac Asiata, Utah

94. Pittsburgh – TE Adam Shaheen, Ashland

95. Atlanta – OT Roderick Johnson, Florida State

96. New England – DE/OLB Tarell Basham, Ohio

97. Miami (COMP. PICK) – CB Damontae Kazee, San Diego State

98. Carolina (COMP. PICK) – G Nico Siragusa, San Diego State

99. Philadelphia (COMP. PICK THRU BAL) – C Pat Elflein, Ohio State

100. Tennessee (COMP. PICK THRU LA RAMS) – DT Elijah Qualls, Washington

101. Denver (COMP. PICK) – LB Alex Anzalone, Florida +

102. Seattle (COMP. PICK) – QB Brad Kaaya, Miami

103. New England (COMP. PICK THRU CLE) – LB Duke Riley, LSU

104. Kansas City (COMP. PICK) – OT Jermaine Eluemunor, Texas A&M

105. Pittsburgh (COMP. PICK) – QB Nathan Peterman, Pittsburgh

106. Seattle (COMP. PICK) - DT Charles Walker, Oklahoma

107. NY Jets (COMP. PICK) - OT Adam Bisnowaty, Pittsburgh

ROUND FOUR

108. Cleveland – DT Jarron Jones, Notre Dame

109. San Francisco – CB Jalen Myrick, Minnesota

110. Jacksonville – C Tyler Orlosky, West Virginia

111. Chicago – SS Josh Jones, NC State

112. LA Rams – WR Amara Darboh, Michigan

113. LA Chargers – WR Josh Reynolds, Texas A&M

114. Washington (THRU NYJ) – DT Jaleel Johnson, Iowa

115. Carolina – SS Josh Harvey-Clemons, Louisville *

116. Cincinnati – DT Eddie Vanderdoes, UCLA +

117. Chicago (THRU BUF) – WR Carlos Henderson, Louisiana Tech

New England (THRU NO) selection forfeited

118. Philadelphia – DT Davon Godchaux, LSU

119. Arizona – WR Jehu Chesson, Michigan

120. Minnesota – SS Xavier Woods, Louisiana Tech

121. Indianapolis – OT Conor McDermott, UCLA

122. Baltimore – DE/OLB Carroll Phillips, Illinois

123. Washington – WR ArDarius Stewart, Alabama

124. Tennessee – CB Howard Wilson, Houston

125. Tampa Bay – RB Marlon Mack, South Florida

126. Denver – TE Bucky Hodges, Virginia Tech

127. Detroit – WR Chad Hansen, California

128. Minnesota (THRU MIA) – OT Chad Wheeler, USC

NY Giants pick moved to end of 4th round

129. Oakland – DE Deatrich Wise, Jr., Arkansas +

130. Houston – SS Montae Nicholson, Michigan State

131. New England (THRU SEA) – CB Rasul Douglas, West Virginia

132. Kansas City – CB Corn Elder, Miami

133. Dallas – FS Marcus Maye, Florida +

134. Green Bay – RB Wayne Gallman, Clemson

135. Pittsburgh – RB James Conner, Pittsburgh +

136. Atlanta – QB Josh Dobbs, Tennessee

137. Indianapolis (THRU NE) – G Aviante Collins, TCU

138. Cincinnati (COMP. PICK) – WR Taywan Taylor, Western Kentucky

139. Philadelphia (COMP. PICK THRU CLE) – OLB Vince Biegel, Wisconsin

140. NY Giants – TE Jordan Leggett, Clemson

141. LA Rams (COMP. PICK) – WR Noah Brown, Ohio State

142. Houston (COMP. PICK THRU CLE) – TE Gerald Everett, South Alabama

143. San Francisco (COMP. PICK) - RB Jamaal Williams, BYU

144. Indianapolis (COMP. PICK) – DT Vincent Taylor, Oklahoma State

ROUND FIVE

145. Cleveland – WR Kenny Golladay, Northern Illinois

146. San Francisco – OT Will Holden, Vanderbilt

147. Chicago – CB Cameron Sutton, Tennessee

148. Jacksonville – DE Derek Rivers, Youngstown State

149. LA Rams – DE/OLB Daeshon Hall, Texas A&M

150. NY Jets – CB Shaquil Griffin, Central Florida

151. LA Chargers – OT David Sharpe, Florida

152. Carolina – WR K.D. Cannon, Baylor

153. Cincinnati – G Danny Isidora, Florida

154. Washington (THRU NO) – ILB Richie Brown, Mississippi State

155. Philadelphia – CB Brian Allen, Utah

156. Buffalo – WR Isaiah Ford, Virginia Tech

157. Arizona – C Kyle Fuller, Baylor

158. Indianapolis – ILB Blair Brown, Ohio

159. Baltimore – DT Nazair Jones, North Carolina

160. Minnesota – WR Travan Dural, LSU

161. San Francisco (THRU WAS) – WR Ryan Switzer, North Carolina

162. Tampa Bay – TE Jeremy Sprinkle, Arkansas

163. New England (THRU DEN) – FS Delano Hill, Michigan

164. Tennessee – WR Malachi Dupree, LSU

165. Detroit – RB T.J. Logan, North Carolina

166. Miami – ILB Connor Harris, Lindenwood

167. NY Giants – K Zane Gonzalez, Arizona State

168. Oakland – FS John Johnson, Boston College

169. Houston – OT Julie’n Davenport, Bucknell

Seattle’s selection forfeited

170. Kansas City – G Zach Banner, USC

171. Buffalo (THRU DAL) – CB Marquez White, Florida State

172. Green Bay – ILB Jayon Brown, UCLA

173. Pittsburgh – ILB Ben Gedeon, Michigan

174. Atlanta – SS Tedric Thompson, Colorado

175. Cleveland (THRU NE) – OT Dan Skipper, Arkansas

176. Cincinnati (COMP. PICK) – OLB Devonte Fields, Louisville

177. Denver (COMP. PICK) – DT Ryan Glasgow, Michigan

178. Miami (COMP. PICK) – OLB Javancy Jones, Jackson State

179. Arizona (COMP. PICK) – G Damien Mama, USC

180. Kansas City (COMP. PICK) – RB Donnel Pumphrey, San Diego State

181. Cleveland (COMP. PICK) – FS Jordan Sterns, Oklahoma State

182. Green Bay (COMP. PICK) – WR Fred Ross, Mississippi State

183. New England (COMP. PICK) – C Jon Toth, Kentucky

184. Miami (COMP. PICK) – TE George Kittle, Iowa

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years ago

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DGB NHL Season Preview: The Question Marks, Contenders, and Playoff Picks

Yesterday, we covered half the league with a look at the bottom-feeders and the middle-of-the-pack. Today, we wrap up the season preview with a look at the very best teams the league has to offer, plus a full set of predictions and a Cup winner. Spoiler alert: It’s a little anti-climactic.

But first, let’s work on our exasperated shrugs as we tackle the league’s misfits and question marks.

The Your-Guess-Is-As-Good-As-Mine Division

This is always my favorite division, for two reasons. First, by definition I can’t actually be wrong about any of the teams here. And second, it’s fun to watch fans read through the first half of the preview, not see their team listed, and get all excited about them being considered contenders. Not so fast…

Buffalo Sabres

Last season: 33-37-12, 78 points, last in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They fired the coach and GM. As far as the roster, the emphasis was on the blueline, which looks better with Marco Scandella and Nathan Beaulieu added.

Outlook: This year feels like a crucial one, where you’d want to see big progress to justify all the misery that came before. There’s enough young talent here that you could certainly imagine it all coming together. Sounds encouraging, right? The problem is I cut-and-pasted those two sentences from last year’s preview, and then the team went backwards. It can’t happen again… can it?

In the spotlight: Jack Eichel, and not just because he’s the team’s best player. Fair or not, Eichel was viewed as having a hand in those firings, and some Sabres fans joke that he’s become the team’s de facto GM. And he still needs an extension. It’s fair to say there’s a lot riding on this year.

Oddly specific prediction: I really want to find a way to get them higher than sixth in the Atlantic. I’m not sure I can. I cut-and-pasted that part, too.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Last season: 50-24-8, 108 points, third in the Metro, out in the first round

Offseason report: Other than that Brandon Saad/Artemi Panarin deal and dumping David Clarkson’s contract on the Knights, nothing big.

Outlook: A year ago, everyone had them pegged for last in the Metro and John Tortorella was going to be the first coach fired. Then they won 50 games. Was it a fluke? Not necessarily, but it’s fair to say that the hockey world wants to see it again before they’re convinced.

In the spotlight: Zach Werenski. Other than goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, nobody was a bigger piece of last year’s rise than the rookie blueliner. He’s on track for full-blown stardom, but he also just turned 20 and some guys struggle in their second season. The Jackets may not be able to afford that.

Oddly specific prediction: They break through with the most successful playoff run in franchise history. Which is to say they lose in the first round in seven games.

Los Angeles Kings

Last season: 39-35-8, 86 points, fifth in Pacific, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They fired Dean Lombardi and Darryl Sutter, essentially hitting reset on their Stanley Cup era.

Outlook: Those two Cups feel like they were a long time ago, as the Kings have won just a single playoff game since 2014. They’re still a good team on paper, and some new voices could spark a temporary return to the league’s elite. But this is basically the same roster as last year, just older, and you have to figure that big changes are coming sooner or later.

In the spotlight: Drew Doughty. If the Kings can rebound, Doughty will be a big reason why. If they can’t, expect his contract status—he’ll be a UFA in 2019—to start to loom large. Especially if he keeps saying stuff like this.

Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: They hang tough early, but the wheels come off by mid-November and they finish sixth in the Pacific.

Florida Panthers

Last season: 35-36-11, 81 points, sixth in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They confused everyone at the expansion draft, said goodbye to Jaromir Jagr, hired a new coach, and basically tried as hard as they could to hit CTRL-Z on everything they did a year ago.

Outlook: They were really bad last season, and on paper they just got even worse. But last year felt like a worst-case scenario, and they still have one of the better young rosters in the league. There may not be a team in the league with a wider range of realistic outcomes heading into this season.

In the spotlight: Aleksander Barkov. He was the team’s second leading scorer last year, trailing only [squints at scoresheet] Vincent Trocheck. Barkov has always been an excellent two-way player, but has yet to crack 60 points. With three of the other top six scorers shipped out for essentially no return, the Panthers will need him to be an offensive force.

Oddly specific prediction: Jonathan Huberdeau stays healthy and has his breakout year, leading the team in scoring.

Washington Capitals

Last season: 55-19-8, 118 points, won the Presidents’ Trophy, then remembered they were the Capitals

Offseason report: They didn’t blow it all up, despite rumors they were considering it. But they certainly didn’t get any better, losing Justin Williams, Nate Schmidt, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Karl Alzner.

Outlook: Yet another loss to the Penguins seems to be the one that finally broke the Capitals—the players, the front office, the fans, everyone. With this year’s team featuring the same core but less depth, it sure seems like there’s only one direction to go. Then again, maybe that’s the key. Maybe the Caps are the team that can’t handle the pressure of being the favorite, but get dangerous once they’re written off. We’ll find out, because man, these guys have been written off so hard the pencil tore through the paper and carved “CAPS SUCK” into the table underneath.

In the spotlight: Barry Trotz. They’re totally going to fire him if they start slow, aren’t they?

Oddly specific prediction: The Capitals make the playoffs, face the Penguins, and beat them. I don’t remotely believe that, I just wanted Washington fans to remember what happiness felt like for a moment.

Winnipeg Jets

Last season: 40-35-7, 87 points, fifth in the Central, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They signed Steve Mason and Dmitry Kulikov to UFA deals. Then they gave the coach and GM extensions, since organizational stability is crucial when you’ve got zero playoffs wins in six years.

Outlook: The roster is (mostly) young and (mostly) very good. It has to click eventually, you’d think. And yet here we are, once again, talking about this finally being the season the Jets break through and actually do something. We’ve been down this road for years, and it just never seems to happen. Meanwhile, other Central teams are making aggressive trades, firing people, and finishing ten points ahead of Winnipeg year after year.

Photo by Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

In the spotlight: Mark Scheifele. The best forward whose name you still have to look up to spell correctly every single time broke through in 2015-16, then did it again last year. Was that his peak? He’s 24, so maybe not.

Oddly specific prediction: Connor Hellebuyck wins the starting job, Patrik Laine scores 50, and the Jets make the playoffs. What the hell, I’ll be right one of these years.

Nashville Predators

Last season: 41-29-12, 94 points, fourth in the Central, lost in the final

Offseason report: They lost their captain, Mike Fisher, to retirement, and saw James Neal head to Vegas. They also signed Nick Bonino away from the Penguins.

Outlook: The Predators’ playoff run was so much fun that it’s easy to forget that this team finished last year with the same point total as the Islanders. They have the talent to make another push for a title, but the margin for error isn’t as big as you might assume. And the recent history of Cup final losers isn’t pretty.

In the spotlight: Roman Josi. He’s the new captain, and with Ryan Ellis out for a few months, he’ll have to be at his best. There’s been some debate in recent years as to whether Josi is one of the league’s most underrated players, or sneakily overrated. We’ll get some clarity this year.

Oddly specific prediction: The team struggles to score early on. In an unrelated story, Matt Duchene is starting every interview by mentioning how much he loves country music.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Last season: 40-27-15, 95 points, second Eastern wildcard, out in the first round

Offseason report: They signed Patrick Marleau to a three-year deal that would raise serious salary cap questions if this were the sort of team that worried about the rules.

Outlook: You know when your phone is completely dead and you figure it will take a while to charge back up but then you plug it in and suddenly it’s at like 78% right away and on the one hand you think “Oh awesome that was fast” but on the other hand you’re like “That’s not supposed to happen, I think something might be wrong here.” That’s how longtime Maple Leaf fans feel about the rebuild.

Photo by Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

In the spotlight: Jake Gardiner. The Leafs are stacked with young talent up front and seem adequate in goal, but still don’t have that No. 1 stud defenseman. Or do they? Fans have been hoping that Morgan Rielly would grow into the role, but the oft-maligned Gardiner might be closer.

Oddly specific prediction: With everyone in the world seemingly convinced the Leafs are either headed directly for a championship or about to collapse, they annoy everyone by finishing with the exact same 95 points they had last year.

The Contenders Division

If your favorite team hasn’t shown up yet, that can only mean one thing: They made the cut for the final group, the one featuring the teams with the best shot at the Stanley Cup. Well, that or I forgot about them and left them off the list completely. Crap, I probably should have double-checked this thing.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Last season: 50-21-11, 111 points, second in the Metro and overall, won the Stanley Cup for the second straight year

Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Offseason report: They kept the core intact, but the depth took a major hit with several departures. That includes longtime fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury, who’s now a Golden Knight.

Outlook: There hasn’t been a three-peat in the NHL since the Al Arbour Islanders—even the Gretzky/Messier Oilers and Lemieux/Jagr Penguins never won three straight—so doing it in the cap era would seem like a borderline miracle. Still, the Penguins are already two wins deep, and they come into this year looking like the favorites. The depth is a big concern, though.

In the spotlight: Kris Letang. He’s back healthy, and with him in the lineup the Penguins can make a reasonable case that their opening night lineup is better than the one they won the Cup with. Obviously, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are the keys, but Letang playing a full season for the first time since 2010-11 would be enormous.

Oddly specific prediction: Jake Guentzel goes five rounds too early in your office hockey pool.

Chicago Blackhawks

Last season: 50-23-9, 109 points, first in the Central, swept in the opening round

Offseason report: They swapped Panarin for Saad, dumped Niklas Hjalmarsson’s contract on the Coyotes, and lost Marian Hossa to a rare skin disorder.

Outlook: Between age, the salary cap, and some questionable roster moves, you can see the cracks starting to form. The question is: When things finally start to crumble, how fast does it all come down?

In the spotlight: Brent Seabrook. The Toews/Kane/Keith core is locked in forever, and Hawks fans are fine with that. But Seabrook’s deal is tougher to defend, especially given his recent play. A return to form would be nice, but that’s asking a lot from a 32-year-old with plenty of miles on him.

Oddly specific prediction: The Hawks hold off the inevitable for another year, cracking 100 points yet again.

Anaheim Ducks

Last season: 46-23-13, 105 points, first in the Pacific, lost in the conference final

Offseason report: The lost Shea Theodore to the Knights, which will hurt someday but is manageable now. They also added Ryan Miller on a cheap deal, and brought back deadline rental Patrick Eaves.

Outlook: The Ducks were a trendy pick to regress last year after replacing Bruce Boudreau with Randy Carlyle, but they had another strong season. The cap is jammed and the core is getting old, so the window is closing here. But for now, they look like contenders.

In the spotlight: Corey Perry. After scoring 110 goals over three years, the former MVP and Rocket Richard winner plummeted to just 19 last year. Even the best have off-years, and the Ducks better hope that’s what this was, because Perry is 32 and makes big bucks for the next four years.

Photo by Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: Hampus Lindholm has a breakout year, infuriating the analytics guys who insist he’s already had several.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Last season: 42-30-10, 94 points, fifth in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They finally traded Jonathan Drouin, re-signed several guys, and added veterans Chris Kunitz and Dan Girardi.

Outlook: It’s rare for a team that missed the playoffs one year to head into the next as a consensus Cup favorite. Then again, it’s rare for a team this good to miss the playoffs at all. On paper, the Lightning are as good as anyone out there, and with a healthy Steven Stamkos they’re already better than last year’s edition. Last year was about as bad as it could possibly get for this group, and they still only missed the playoffs by one point.

In the spotlight: Steve Yzerman. I know, I know, he’s everyone’s pick as the best GM in the league right now. But last year, he misplayed his Ben Bishop hand, made the call to sell at the deadline, and then lost out on the final wildcard spot by a single point to one of the teams he sold to. He had to do some of that to clear up cap space, sure. But then he used that cap space on Girardi, who even the most loyal Ranger fans had soured on. Are we completely sure he’s playing 3D chess here? OK, just making sure.

Oddly specific prediction: Victor Hedman finally wins the Norris Trophy.

Dallas Stars

Last season: 34-37-11, 79 points, sixth in Central, missed the playoffs

Offseason report: They loaded up, adding Bishop, Alexander Radulov, Martin Hanzal, and Marc Methot. They also brought Ken Hitchcock back as coach.

Outlook: Wait, a 79-point team in the contenders section? Welcome to the parity era. But no team was a bigger disappointment last season, and no team did more to bring in reinforcements over the summer, so all signs point to a big rebound season in Dallas. The blueline remains a question mark, but there’s so much firepower up front that they can cover for some of that.

In the spotlight: Bishop. Goaltending has killed the Stars for years, and GM Jim Nill finally went out and got the guy we all assumed he’d wind up with all along. But is it already too late? Bishop wasn’t great last year, and he’s a big guy on the wrong side of 30. If he slumps or gets hurt, look out.

Oddly specific prediction: The Benn-Seguin-Radulov line is the league’s most entertaining until Hitchcock decides they’re taking too many chances and breaks them up in the third period of the season opener.

Montreal Canadiens

Last season: 47-26-9, 103 points, first in the Atlantic, out in round one

Offseason report: Radulov left and Andrei Markov retired, but they added Drouin, Alzner, and Ales Hemsky. Most importantly, they got Carey Price locked in on a long-term extension.

Outlook: While the roster underwent some changes, when it all shakes out this year’s Canadiens look a lot like last year’s. Which is to say, they’re good enough to make the playoffs and maybe even win the division, but it’s hard to see a path to the Stanley Cup that doesn’t involve Price stealing a few series along the way. Which he might.

Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

In the spotlight: Alex Galchenyuk. Despite all the changes over the summer, GM Marc Bergevin never did find the surefire first-line center everyone in Montreal wants him to get. Maybe that ends up being Drouin. Maybe they try Galchenyuk again someday. Or maybe we all just keep talking about this forever. After five years in the NHL, the team still doesn’t seem quite sure what it has in this kid.

Oddly specific prediction: Drouin hits the 60-point mark for the first time. It’s not enough for Montreal.

Minnesota Wild

Last season: 49-25-8, 106 points, second in the Central, out in round one

Offseason report: They swung a deal with the Sabres for Tyler Ennis and Marcus Foligno, signed Matt Cullen, and extended captain Mikko Koivu.

Outlook: Does it feel like we’re stretching the whole “contender” thing here? It kind of does. The Wild are usually good, usually make the playoffs, and usually exit pretty quickly. Last year’s team was quite possibly their best ever, so there’s something to build on here, and the Central seems kind of wide open. Could they win it all? Sure, I guess.

In the spotlight: Zach Parise. Remember him? Last year he had 42 points to rank eighth on the team. He’s 33, and still signed for another eight years. Those 2020 lockout compliance buyouts can’t come fast enough in Minnesota.

Oddly specific prediction: Parise scores 30 goals and makes me eat that last paragraph.

Edmonton Oilers

Last season: 47-26-9, 103 points, second in Pacific, out in round two

Offseason report: They gave Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl all the money. Oh, and they traded Jordan Eberle to help pay for it.

Outlook: With a generational franchise player and some momentum from last year, the Oilers seem destined to win a Cup in the very near future. But is this year too soon?

Photo by Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

In the spotlight: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Obviously McDavid is the big name here, and Draisaitl will be analyzed to death due to his new deal. But Nugent-Hopkins has become a bit of a forgotten man in Edmonton. This seems like the year when we figure out whether the former first overall pick can be a key supporting piece for a contender, or a salary cap albatross who has to be shipped out, Eberle-style.

Oddly specific prediction: McDavid becomes the league’s first 120-point player in a decade.

Predictions: I’ve got four new playoff teams; history tells us that’s two or three teams too few. Still, you have to give me credit for mixing it up a bit and not just sticking with the same-old same-old, right? Uh, feel free to skip the Cup pick.

Atlantic

1) Lightning* 2) Canadiens* 3) Maple Leafs* 4) Bruins 5) Senators 6) Sabres 7) Panthers 8) Red Wings

Metro

1) Penguins* 2) Capitals* 3) Blue Jackets* 4) Hurricanes* (wc) 5) Rangers* (wc) 6) Islanders 7) Flyers 8) Devils

Central

1) Wild* 2) Blackhawks* 3) Stars* 4) Predators* (wc) 5) Jets* (wc) 6) Blues 7) Avalanche

Pacific

1) Oilers* 2) Ducks* 3) Flames* 4) Sharks 5) Coyotes 6) Kings 7) Canucks 8) Knights

* = playoffs; (wc) = wildcard Eastern Conference final: Penguins over Lightning Western Conference final: Oilers over Stars Stanley Cup pick: Penguins over Oilers in five

Click here for more preview stories on the 2017-18 NHL season

DGB NHL Season Preview: The Question Marks, Contenders, and Playoff Picks syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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DGB NHL Season Preview: The Question Marks, Contenders, and Playoff Picks

But first, let's work on our exasperated shrugs as we tackle the league's misfits and question marks.

The Your-Guess-Is-As-Good-As-Mine Division

This is always my favorite division, for two reasons. First, by definition I can't actually be wrong about any of the teams here. And second, it's fun to watch fans read through the first half of the preview, not see their team listed, and get all excited about them being considered contenders. Not so fast...

Buffalo Sabres

Last season: 33-37-12, 78 points, last in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They fired the coach and GM. As far as the roster, the emphasis was on the blueline, which looks better with Marco Scandella and Nathan Beaulieu added.

Outlook: This year feels like a crucial one, where you'd want to see big progress to justify all the misery that came before. There's enough young talent here that you could certainly imagine it all coming together. Sounds encouraging, right? The problem is I cut-and-pasted those two sentences from last year's preview, and then the team went backwards. It can't happen again... can it?

In the spotlight: Jack Eichel, and not just because he's the team's best player. Fair or not, Eichel was viewed as having a hand in those firings, and some Sabres fans joke that he's become the team's de facto GM. And he still needs an extension. It's fair to say there's a lot riding on this year.

Oddly specific prediction: I really want to find a way to get them higher than sixth in the Atlantic. I'm not sure I can. I cut-and-pasted that part, too.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Last season: 50-24-8, 108 points, third in the Metro, out in the first round

Offseason report: Other than that Brandon Saad/Artemi Panarin deal and dumping David Clarkson's contract on the Knights, nothing big.

Outlook: A year ago, everyone had them pegged for last in the Metro and John Tortorella was going to be the first coach fired. Then they won 50 games. Was it a fluke? Not necessarily, but it's fair to say that the hockey world wants to see it again before they're convinced.

In the spotlight: Zach Werenski. Other than goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, nobody was a bigger piece of last year's rise than the rookie blueliner. He's on track for full-blown stardom, but he also just turned 20 and some guys struggle in their second season. The Jackets may not be able to afford that.

Oddly specific prediction: They break through with the most successful playoff run in franchise history. Which is to say they lose in the first round in seven games.

Los Angeles Kings

Last season: 39-35-8, 86 points, fifth in Pacific, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They fired Dean Lombardi and Darryl Sutter, essentially hitting reset on their Stanley Cup era.

Outlook: Those two Cups feel like they were a long time ago, as the Kings have won just a single playoff game since 2014. They're still a good team on paper, and some new voices could spark a temporary return to the league's elite. But this is basically the same roster as last year, just older, and you have to figure that big changes are coming sooner or later.

In the spotlight: Drew Doughty. If the Kings can rebound, Doughty will be a big reason why. If they can't, expect his contract status—he'll be a UFA in 2019—to start to loom large. Especially if he keeps saying stuff like this.

Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: They hang tough early, but the wheels come off by mid-November and they finish sixth in the Pacific.

Florida Panthers

Last season: 35-36-11, 81 points, sixth in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

In the spotlight: Aleksander Barkov. He was the team's second leading scorer last year, trailing only [squints at scoresheet] Vincent Trocheck. Barkov has always been an excellent two-way player, but has yet to crack 60 points. With three of the other top six scorers shipped out for essentially no return, the Panthers will need him to be an offensive force.

Oddly specific prediction: Jonathan Huberdeau stays healthy and has his breakout year, leading the team in scoring.

Washington Capitals

Last season: 55-19-8, 118 points, won the Presidents' Trophy, then remembered they were the Capitals

Offseason report: They didn't blow it all up, despite rumors they were considering it. But they certainly didn't get any better, losing Justin Williams, Nate Schmidt, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Karl Alzner.

Outlook: Yet another loss to the Penguins seems to be the one that finally broke the Capitals—the players, the front office, the fans, everyone. With this year's team featuring the same core but less depth, it sure seems like there's only one direction to go. Then again, maybe that's the key. Maybe the Caps are the team that can't handle the pressure of being the favorite, but get dangerous once they're written off. We'll find out, because man, these guys have been written off so hard the pencil tore through the paper and carved "CAPS SUCK" into the table underneath.

In the spotlight: Barry Trotz. They're totally going to fire him if they start slow, aren't they?

Oddly specific prediction: The Capitals make the playoffs, face the Penguins, and beat them. I don't remotely believe that, I just wanted Washington fans to remember what happiness felt like for a moment.

Winnipeg Jets

Last season: 40-35-7, 87 points, fifth in the Central, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They signed Steve Mason and Dmitry Kulikov to UFA deals. Then they gave the coach and GM extensions, since organizational stability is crucial when you've got zero playoffs wins in six years.

Outlook: The roster is (mostly) young and (mostly) very good. It has to click eventually, you'd think. And yet here we are, once again, talking about this finally being the season the Jets break through and actually do something. We've been down this road for years, and it just never seems to happen. Meanwhile, other Central teams are making aggressive trades, firing people, and finishing ten points ahead of Winnipeg year after year.

Photo by Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: Connor Hellebuyck wins the starting job, Patrik Laine scores 50, and the Jets make the playoffs. What the hell, I'll be right one of these years.

Nashville Predators

Last season: 41-29-12, 94 points, fourth in the Central, lost in the final

Offseason report: They lost their captain, Mike Fisher, to retirement, and saw James Neal head to Vegas. They also signed Nick Bonino away from the Penguins.

Outlook: The Predators' playoff run was so much fun that it's easy to forget that this team finished last year with the same point total as the Islanders. They have the talent to make another push for a title, but the margin for error isn't as big as you might assume. And the recent history of Cup final losers isn't pretty.

In the spotlight: Roman Josi. He's the new captain, and with Ryan Ellis out for a few months, he'll have to be at his best. There's been some debate in recent years as to whether Josi is one of the league's most underrated players, or sneakily overrated. We'll get some clarity this year.

Oddly specific prediction: The team struggles to score early on. In an unrelated story, Matt Duchene is starting every interview by mentioning how much he loves country music.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Last season: 40-27-15, 95 points, second Eastern wildcard, out in the first round

Offseason report: They signed Patrick Marleau to a three-year deal that would raise serious salary cap questions if this were the sort of team that worried about the rules.

Outlook: You know when your phone is completely dead and you figure it will take a while to charge back up but then you plug it in and suddenly it's at like 78% right away and on the one hand you think "Oh awesome that was fast" but on the other hand you're like "That's not supposed to happen, I think something might be wrong here." That's how longtime Maple Leaf fans feel about the rebuild.

Photo by Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

In the spotlight: Jake Gardiner. The Leafs are stacked with young talent up front and seem adequate in goal, but still don't have that No. 1 stud defenseman. Or do they? Fans have been hoping that Morgan Rielly would grow into the role, but the oft-maligned Gardiner might be closer.

The Contenders Division

If your favorite team hasn't shown up yet, that can only mean one thing: They made the cut for the final group, the one featuring the teams with the best shot at the Stanley Cup. Well, that or I forgot about them and left them off the list completely. Crap, I probably should have double-checked this thing.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Last season: 50-21-11, 111 points, second in the Metro and overall, won the Stanley Cup for the second straight year

Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Offseason report: They kept the core intact, but the depth took a major hit with several departures. That includes longtime fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury, who's now a Golden Knight.

Outlook: There hasn't been a three-peat in the NHL since the Al Arbour Islanders—even the Gretzky/Messier Oilers and Lemieux/Jagr Penguins never won three straight—so doing it in the cap era would seem like a borderline miracle. Still, the Penguins are already two wins deep, and they come into this year looking like the favorites. The depth is a big concern, though.

In the spotlight: Kris Letang. He's back healthy, and with him in the lineup the Penguins can make a reasonable case that their opening night lineup is better than the one they won the Cup with. Obviously, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are the keys, but Letang playing a full season for the first time since 2010-11 would be enormous.

Oddly specific prediction: Jake Guentzel goes five rounds too early in your office hockey pool.

Chicago Blackhawks

Last season: 50-23-9, 109 points, first in the Central, swept in the opening round

Offseason report: They swapped Panarin for Saad, dumped Niklas Hjalmarsson's contract on the Coyotes, and lost Marian Hossa to a rare skin disorder.

In the spotlight: Brent Seabrook. The Toews/Kane/Keith core is locked in forever, and Hawks fans are fine with that. But Seabrook's deal is tougher to defend, especially given his recent play. A return to form would be nice, but that's asking a lot from a 32-year-old with plenty of miles on him.

Oddly specific prediction: The Hawks hold off the inevitable for another year, cracking 100 points yet again.

Anaheim Ducks

Last season: 46-23-13, 105 points, first in the Pacific, lost in the conference final

Offseason report: The lost Shea Theodore to the Knights, which will hurt someday but is manageable now. They also added Ryan Miller on a cheap deal, and brought back deadline rental Patrick Eaves.

In the spotlight: Corey Perry. After scoring 110 goals over three years, the former MVP and Rocket Richard winner plummeted to just 19 last year. Even the best have off-years, and the Ducks better hope that's what this was, because Perry is 32 and makes big bucks for the next four years.

Photo by Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: Hampus Lindholm has a breakout year, infuriating the analytics guys who insist he's already had several.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Last season: 42-30-10, 94 points, fifth in the Atlantic, missed playoffs

Offseason report: They finally traded Jonathan Drouin, re-signed several guys, and added veterans Chris Kunitz and Dan Girardi.

Outlook: It's rare for a team that missed the playoffs one year to head into the next as a consensus Cup favorite. Then again, it's rare for a team this good to miss the playoffs at all. On paper, the Lightning are as good as anyone out there, and with a healthy Steven Stamkos they're already better than last year's edition. Last year was about as bad as it could possibly get for this group, and they still only missed the playoffs by one point.

In the spotlight: Steve Yzerman. I know, I know, he's everyone's pick as the best GM in the league right now. But last year, he misplayed his Ben Bishop hand, made the call to sell at the deadline, and then lost out on the final wildcard spot by a single point to one of the teams he sold to. He had to do some of that to clear up cap space, sure. But then he used that cap space on Girardi, who even the most loyal Ranger fans had soured on. Are we completely sure he's playing 3D chess here? OK, just making sure.

Oddly specific prediction: Victor Hedman finally wins the Norris Trophy.

Dallas Stars

Last season: 34-37-11, 79 points, sixth in Central, missed the playoffs

Offseason report: They loaded up, adding Bishop, Alexander Radulov, Martin Hanzal, and Marc Methot. They also brought Ken Hitchcock back as coach.

Outlook: Wait, a 79-point team in the contenders section? Welcome to the parity era. But no team was a bigger disappointment last season, and no team did more to bring in reinforcements over the summer, so all signs point to a big rebound season in Dallas. The blueline remains a question mark, but there's so much firepower up front that they can cover for some of that.

In the spotlight: Bishop. Goaltending has killed the Stars for years, and GM Jim Nill finally went out and got the guy we all assumed he'd wind up with all along. But is it already too late? Bishop wasn't great last year, and he's a big guy on the wrong side of 30. If he slumps or gets hurt, look out.

Oddly specific prediction: The Benn-Seguin-Radulov line is the league's most entertaining until Hitchcock decides they're taking too many chances and breaks them up in the third period of the season opener.

Montreal Canadiens

Last season: 47-26-9, 103 points, first in the Atlantic, out in round one

Offseason report: Radulov left and Andrei Markov retired, but they added Drouin, Alzner, and Ales Hemsky. Most importantly, they got Carey Price locked in on a long-term extension.

Outlook: While the roster underwent some changes, when it all shakes out this year's Canadiens look a lot like last year's. Which is to say, they're good enough to make the playoffs and maybe even win the division, but it's hard to see a path to the Stanley Cup that doesn't involve Price stealing a few series along the way. Which he might.

Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: Drouin hits the 60-point mark for the first time. It's not enough for Montreal.

Minnesota Wild

Last season: 49-25-8, 106 points, second in the Central, out in round one

Offseason report: They swung a deal with the Sabres for Tyler Ennis and Marcus Foligno, signed Matt Cullen, and extended captain Mikko Koivu.

Outlook: Does it feel like we're stretching the whole "contender" thing here? It kind of does. The Wild are usually good, usually make the playoffs, and usually exit pretty quickly. Last year's team was quite possibly their best ever, so there's something to build on here, and the Central seems kind of wide open. Could they win it all? Sure, I guess.

In the spotlight: Zach Parise. Remember him? Last year he had 42 points to rank eighth on the team. He's 33, and still signed for another eight years. Those 2020 lockout compliance buyouts can't come fast enough in Minnesota.

Oddly specific prediction: Parise scores 30 goals and makes me eat that last paragraph.

Edmonton Oilers

Last season: 47-26-9, 103 points, second in Pacific, out in round two

Offseason report: They gave Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl all the money. Oh, and they traded Jordan Eberle to help pay for it.

Outlook: With a generational franchise player and some momentum from last year, the Oilers seem destined to win a Cup in the very near future. But is this year too soon?

Photo by Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

Oddly specific prediction: McDavid becomes the league's first 120-point player in a decade.

Predictions: I've got four new playoff teams; history tells us that's two or three teams too few. Still, you have to give me credit for mixing it up a bit and not just sticking with the same-old same-old, right? Uh, feel free to skip the Cup pick.

Atlantic

1) Lightning* 2) Canadiens* 3) Maple Leafs* 4) Bruins 5) Senators 6) Sabres 7) Panthers 8) Red Wings

Metro

1) Penguins* 2) Capitals* 3) Blue Jackets* 4) Hurricanes* (wc) 5) Rangers* (wc) 6) Islanders 7) Flyers 8) Devils

Central

1) Wild* 2) Blackhawks* 3) Stars* 4) Predators* (wc) 5) Jets* (wc) 6) Blues 7) Avalanche

Pacific

1) Oilers* 2) Ducks* 3) Flames* 4) Sharks 5) Coyotes 6) Kings 7) Canucks 8) Knights

* = playoffs; (wc) = wildcard Eastern Conference final: Penguins over Lightning Western Conference final: Oilers over Stars Stanley Cup pick: Penguins over Oilers in five

Click here for more preview stories on the 2017-18 NHL season

DGB NHL Season Preview: The Question Marks, Contenders, and Playoff Picks published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog · 7 years ago

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2017 NFL Preview: All aboard the Tennessee Titans' bandwagon

yahoo

Shutdown Corner is previewing all 32 teams as we get ready for the NFL season, counting down the teams one per weekday in reverse order of our initial 2017 power rankings. No. 1 will be revealed on Aug. 2, the day before the Hall of Fame Game kicks off the preseason.

Some NFL team is going to make a huge jump this season. Last season it was the Oakland Raiders. Just about every season, some team surprises us.

Step right up, Tennessee Titans.

Tennessee has come together fast, and last season was a nice growth season. Nobody expected them to go 9-7, but it didn’t seem all that fluky. Quarterback Marcus Mariota had a strong season. Running back DeMarco Murray revived his career, and rookie backup Derrick Henry looked like the real deal. The offensive line was the best in the NFL outside of Dallas (and, if you believe some metrics, even better than the Cowboys). The defense wasn’t too bad either. Tennessee finished in the top half of the league in yards per rush, yards per pass, yards per rush allowed and yards per pass allowed. The Titans were solid all around.

After improving by six wins in 2016, I think the Titans will find themselves in the playoffs this season.

If there was any complaint last season, it was that Mariota didn’t have enough help. So Tennessee fixed that this offseason. They drafted receiver Corey Davis out of Western Michigan fifth overall. Maybe that was a bit of a reach, but it was the pick obtained from last year’s brilliant trade with the Los Angeles Rams for the No. 1 overall pick. Tennessee had a surplus, and using it on the best receiver in the draft isn’t bad. Eric Decker fell in their laps in June after the New York Jets cut him. Rishard Matthews had a solid 2016 season, but he’s not a No. 1 receiver. He doesn’t have to be anymore. A position of weakness in 2016 looks pretty good now.

The key to the Titans’ resurgence, this season and for the foreseeable future, is Mariota. From Tennessee’s fifth game through its 12th, Mariota had 21 touchdowns and three interceptions. In those eight games Mariota completed 163-of-242 passes (67.4 percent) for 2,073 yards. That’s a 117.7 rating. He did all of that with one of the thinnest receiving corps in the NFL. When you hear that Mariota might turn into a star this season, know that it’s wrong. Mariota has already played like a star. Now the trick is doing it over a full season. He’ll need to prove he’s healthy after breaking his leg late last season, but that’s the only obstacle to him having a big season and being widely recognized as one of the league’s best quarterbacks.

It has been a long road for the Titans. Last season’s 9-7 record was just their second winning mark since 2008. They have missed the playoffs eight straight seasons, and have made it to the postseason just twice in 13 seasons. They haven’t won a playoff game since beating the Baltimore Ravens 20-17 on Jan. 3, 2004.

That seems to be turning around. The Titans have built a competitive roster around their fantastic young quarterback. They play in a division that remains the easiest in the NFL. When the Titans take the next step and get back to the playoffs this season, don’t be too surprised.

Marcus Mariota looks to improve upon a promising 2016 season. (AP)

The Titans knew they needed to upgrade Marcus Mariota’s targets. Corey Davis was the best receiver in this draft. Eric Decker is a consistent veteran who happened to be hurt most of last season. Receiver Taywan Taylor and tight end Jonnu Smith, both third-round picks, were good investments too. You have to respect the way the Titans attacked an obvious deficiency. The Titans added a pair of cornerbacks, free-agent Logan Ryan and first-round pick Adoree’ Jackson. Safety Johnathan Cyprien wasn’t great with the Jaguars, but he’s young and physical. Former Broncos first-round pick Sylvester Williams was added to help at defensive tackle. All of the free-agent losses were players who probably won’t be greatly missed. The Titans had a winning record last season and upgraded the roster in a big way. Grade: A

The Titans are the rare team with a young, exciting quarterback that hasn’t built its entire identity around that quarterback. The Titans’ biggest strength is a fantastic offensive line, led by tackles Jack Conklin and Taylor Lewan. Pro Football Focus ranked the Titans as the best offensive line in the NFL last season, ahead of the Dallas Cowboys. I’d still pick Dallas, but the Titans line is great too and it can push opponents around. Tennessee was third in the NFL in rushing yards and fourth in yards per carry last season. That’s why it was no surprise Tennessee was fourth in the NFL with 476 rushing attempts. DeMarco Murray rushed for 1,287 yards and Derrick Henry came off the bench for 490 yards on just 110 carries. This is a run-based team that just happens to have a future star at quarterback. The Titans have put Mariota in a great spot. He doesn’t need to do everything for Tennessee to win.

The defense, with legendary coordinator Dick LeBeau, was competitive last season but not great. It’s a defense that allowed Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles to throw for 325 yards – by far his best game in a terrible season – in a 38-17 loss late in the season. Cornerback play was an issue, and the Titans hope they have fixed that. But if the Titans don’t improve as a team, it’s probably because the defense posts another below average season.

It’s probably not smart to brush aside concerns about Marcus Mariota’s health. He has finished both of his NFL seasons on injured reserve. He broke his right leg in late December and he was still rehabbing it in mid-June. Mariota sounded like he was on the right track when he spoke to reporters after a minicamp practice on June 14.

“I think from a strength standpoint I’m good. I’ve been doing everything lifting-wise. My body feels at a point where I can do all those things,” Mariota said, according to Jason Wolf of the Tennessean. “Now it’s getting to the point of trusting myself to do it, because a lot of it, even through this entire rehab process, it’s going through that mental obstacle of, you want to protect it.

“Now it’s good; you’ve done everything. Just trust it, that you can do the movements that you’ve been doing. For me, that’s my next step. I’ve got to just go out and do it.”

That sounds great, but Mariota needs to prove he’s healthy in training camp. Then he needs to show he can stay healthy over a full season.

Defensive tackle Jurrell Casey is the best defensive player the Titans have. Pro Football Focus’ grades placed Casey as the 71st best player in the NFL last season. Casey is a disruptor in the middle, especially rushing the quarterback. He has made two straight Pro Bowls and at 27 is still squarely in his prime. If the Titans defense moves to above average, it might be because Casey was closer to his 2013 sack total of 10.5 than the five he posted last season.

From Yahoo Sports’ Andy Behrens: “Marcus Mariota has pretty much every individual trait we like to see in a QB for fantasy purposes, and he now has a loaded receiving corps at his disposal. Not only did the Titans add Corey Davis, the consensus top receiver in the 2017 draft class, but they also managed to pluck Eric Decker from the discard pile. Decker is one of the best red-zone receivers of this era. Don’t be a bit surprised if Mariota delivers a top-five positional finish in his third NFL season. He’s accurate, mobile and he limits turnovers. Mariota is also a year younger than Carson Wentz, so he’s still a young, ascending talent, directing a fun offense.”

[Pressing Questions: Fantasy outlook on the Titans]

[Fantasy Football is open! Sign up now]

DeMarco Murray led the NFL in carries by a wide margin with the 2014 Dallas Cowboys. After getting almost 500 touches (including postseason) that season, Murray’s yardage dropped 1,143 yards in 2015 with the Philadelphia Eagles. That was the biggest drop ever for a reigning rushing champ. Murray looked like he might be prematurely on the back nine of his career, but he wasn’t. Tennessee struck gold on a low-cost trade, as Murray bounced right back to being one of the best running backs in the NFL. If there’s an issue, it’s the 293 carries Murray got last season. That ranked third in the NFL. Eventually these huge workloads will catch up with Murray. The Titans hope it’s not this year, though they have Derrick Henry ready if Murray slips.

WHAT’S A REASONABLE EXPECTATION FOR ERIC DECKER?

Decker’s 2016 was an injury-filled mess. He played just three games due to shoulder and hip injuries, and had just nine catches for 194 yards. He has turned 30 years old, so a bounce-back to his previous levels isn’t a sure thing, even if he stays healthy. Decker got just $4 million on a one-year deal from Tennessee, which is an indication teams are wary. But Decker had at least 80 catches, 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns three times in a four-season stretch before 2016. Even if Decker doesn’t reach those levels again, he can still be valuable to the Titans. It’s not ideal to rely on any rookie as a No. 1 option, even if he’s as talented as Corey Davis. Decker’s arrival means less pressure on Davis while he learns, and that will probably be a good thing.

Nobody figured on the Raiders improving by five games last season and leading the AFC West when Derek Carr got hurt. The Titans won’t improve by five wins (what a story that would be), but you can see some similarities. And the Titans play in a much easier division than last year’s Raiders. The Titans look like the best team in the AFC South, and their schedule is pretty easy (the sixth easiest in the NFL, according to analyst Warren Sharp). If everything comes together it’s not crazy to believe they could be in the mix for a first-round bye … kind of like the Raiders were last season.

While the Titans’ arrow seems like it’s pointed up, teams that make a huge leap often regress the next season. The Titans won two games in 2014, three in 2015 and nine last season. They also posted a 4-0 record in games decided by three points or less, and that’s fluky. As much as I like the Titans this season, there’s good reason to believe they were out over their skis last year and are due for a correction. That would be tough for a fan base that hasn’t had much to cheer for in a long time.

Whenever I’ve been asked who this year’s surprise team will be, the Titans have always been my answer. I believe Marcus Mariota is the most underrated quarterback in the NFL. I don’t think the Titans’ offensive line is as good as Dallas’ line, but it’s elite. The defense is not great but not weighing Tennessee down either. And Tennessee plays a favorable schedule in a division that has no other top-shelf team. Maybe the Titans don’t quite reach 2016 Raiders levels, but picking them to win the AFC South was easy for me. If everything goes right, the Titans could pile up wins in an easy division while the AFC West and AFC North cannibalize each other, and Tennessee could end up in the hunt for a top-two seed. Tennessee has done a great job building the roster, and this is the year it starts to pay off.

32. New York Jets 31. Cleveland Browns 30. San Francisco 49ers 29. Chicago Bears 28. Los Angeles Rams 27. Jacksonville Jaguars 26. Detroit Lions 25. Houston Texans 24. Buffalo Bills 23. Indianapolis Colts 22. Baltimore Ravens 21. Los Angeles Chargers 20. Minnesota Vikings 19. New Orleans Saints 18. Washington Redskins 17. Philadelphia Eagles 16. Miami Dolphins 15. Cincinnati Bengals 14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 13. Arizona Cardinals 12. Denver Broncos

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

#_author:Frank Schwab #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_uuid:a08758ba-3287-3aa4-a1d0-c1d7e9512f94 #_revsp:99add987-dcd1-48ae-b801-e4aa58e4ebd0

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yahoo-roto-arcade-blog · 8 years ago

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Pressing fantasy questions: 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers

Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager and Kenley Jansen are all going top 50, on average, in Yahoo drafts. (Getty)

Los Angeles, coined the original entertainment capital of the world because of the presence of robust movie, TV, radio and music industries, is a city known for birthing stars. And its baseball team falls right in line with that meme. On the fantasy baseball diamond, the Dodgers boast the top starting pitcher selected, on average, in Yahoo ’17 drafts, the top relief pitcher and the No. 2 shortstop, in addition to a number of other highly-regarded players. Coming off a 91-win season that concluded with a 4-2 series loss to the Cubs in the NLCS, the Dodgers are in a good position to give the Cubs another run for their money in the NL … that is if all their stars align.

Let’s get to the Dodgers’ questions that will likely be weighing on the minds of fantasy owners this draft season:

[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Baseball | 2017 Player Rankings | Mock Draft]

Q: Should Clayton Kershaw be the top pick in ’17 drafts?

Colleague Dalton Del Don thinks so, stating his case here, and putting his money where his mouth is here. And Dalton’s far from being alone in his support for Kershaw for the top draft spot. After all, Kershaw pitched just 149 innings last season, yet still finished No. 2 among all fantasy starters, this despite pitching 40-plus innings less than any other starter that finished ranked among the top 10 SPs in the ’16 Yahoo game. He’s finished among the top 7 overall in the Yahoo game in each of the past six seasons, claiming the top spot once, while finishing in the top 3 two other times. And, turning just 29 years old in March, you could say he’s still in the heart of his prime years. Except …

Kershaw has already logged 1,760-plus MLB innings, breaking in with the Dodgers in ’08 at age 20, logging 107.2 innings his rookie season. And for the following seven seasons, he proved to be a true ace workhorse, averaging 215 innings pitched. But, after missing over 60 games last season with a back injury (not to mention 31 games in ’14 because of a back issue), you have to wonder if all this work is starting to catch up with him.

Of course, Kershaw is saying all the right things this spring, stating that his back is no longer a concern and that he plans to make every start this season. And, heck, even if he doesn’t, we know that 150 innings of what Kershaw brings to the table is probably still going to deliver top 10 fantasy results. But, I see a deep starting pitcher pool this year, with a lot of potential breakout arms coming off the board in the mid-to-late rounds, and I have a hard time coughing up a top 5 pick for a starting pitcher, even someone as uniquely gifted as Kershaw.

I think the Yahoo community has him perfectly positioned in early ADP (No. 6 overall), going behind the likes of young offensive stars Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado and Jose Altuve. That, in my opinion, is the exclusive top tier offensive club, and I’d want any one of those guys before Kershaw. But once that group has been drained, Kershaw will immediately enter my radar.

Q: Is Rich Hill the biggest X factor in fantasy baseball?

For my money, he is. Once a promising young lefty coming up with the Cubs, Hill nearly flamed out of baseball altogether because of command issues – after the Cubs cut him loose following four up-and-down seasons, Hill combined for 131.1 (mostly lousy) innings pitched over the next six seasons while donning the uniform of four different MLB clubs. But, something clicked in his second tour with the Boston Red Sox in ’15 when, after being forced to advertise his talents with the Independent League Long Island Ducks during the summer, Hill delivered a 1.55 ERA and 36 strikeouts to just five walks over 29 innings pitched in four starts to close out the season with the BoSox. Last season as a member of Oakland and then the Dodgers, he picked up where he left off, combining for a 2.12 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 129 Ks in 110.2 IP.

In other words, since late ’15, Hill has been an ace-level fantasy starter. And the Dodgers bought into this transformation in the offseason, giving him a three-year, $48 million contract. Sure, it’s not an exorbitant contract given the price that quality established starters are going for these days, but it’s a fair amount of guaranteed money being allocated to a soon-to-be 37-year-old with a history of injuries and command issues who had fallen so far that he was forced to showcase himself to MLB teams in the Independent League less than two seasons ago.

To say it’s been a long, strange trip would be an understatement. Travis Sawchick of FanGraphs did an excellent job a few weeks back of summarizing Hill’s journey, one in which Hill calls himself a “role model for failure.” Hill has risen from the ashes of his MLB career to become a student of the game, using the knowledge he’s gained from the Sabermetric side to help shape who we see today.

Hill’s past 139.1 innings pitched is not only elite, it’s Kershawian (2.00 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 10.7 K/9). I think we have to accept that Hill, who has always had special swing-and-miss stuff, has figured things out. He may not be able to replicate what he’s done over the past two seasons in ’17, but it’s reasonable to think he can deliver an ERA in the low 3s (or less) and a K/9 rate of 9-plus. What is not reasonable to expect is more than 150 innings pitched considering he’s logged more than last season’s 110.1 IP just one other time in his MLB career – you should probably set expectations for something in the 125-150 IP range.

Hill is going No. 31 overall among SPs in average Yahoo drafts, which looks like a bargain when you consider that he was the No. 15 overall starter in the Yahoo game last season. Even if Hill regresses a bit from last season, he’s still very likely to outperform his ADP if he can surpass his ’16 innings pitched total even if only by a small margin.

Q: Is there any Puig intrigue left?

I’ll probably always be a sucker for the immense, and oft-squandered, talents of Yasiel Puig. A consensus top 60 overall pick in ’16 drafts Puig can now be had well outside the top 200 overall thanks to a rough ’16 campaign that saw him demoted to the minors for a month. Of course, he returned from that demotion to ultimately tantalize/tease us by producing an upper .900 OPS over the final month of the season.

Even with all his warts, here’s simply no denying he’s one of the most exciting players in the game when his attitude and health are favorably aligned. We are talking about a 26 year old with a career .833 OPS in 1751 career plate appearances in a last-chance situation in LA. Some could argue a change of scenery is exactly what Puig needs, and I think he’s a very good candidate to be dealt. But no matter where he plays, if he can manage to put together something in the neighborhood of 500 at bats, he’s got very little chance of disappointing on the fantasy field when you factor in his current ADP. I haven’t been able to quit Puig, and I’ll be buying once again – he’s the 60th OF taken, on average, in Yahoo drafts, but No. 50 in my OF rankings – only this time in the much more palatable late rounds.

Dodgers Projected Lineup

Logan Forsythe, 2B

Corey Seager, SS

Justin Turner, 3B

Adrian Gonzalez, 1B

Yasmani Grandal, C

Joc Pederson, OF

Yasiel Puig, OF

Andrew Toles, OF

Dodgers Projected Rotation

SP Clayton Kershaw

SP Kenta Maeda

SP Rich Hill

SP Scott Kazmir

SP Julio Urias

CL Kenley Jansen

MR1 – Pedro Baez

#_author:Brandon Funston #_uuid:032a422c-3a3e-3c8d-b30e-5777bf962061 #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #Fantasy Baseball #_revsp:54edcaf7-cdbb-43d7-a41b-bffdcc37fb56

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yahoo-roto-arcade-blog · 8 years ago

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Pressing fantasy questions: 2017 New York Mets

The Mets’ enviable, yet oft-injured, starting rotation. (Getty)

The Mets allowed an average of 3.81 runs per game in ’16, a mark that was bettered by just two clubs (Cubs and Nationals). Unfortunately, the Mets were also adept at limiting their own runs scored, finishing with the fifth-fewest runs in the league. The result was an 87-75 record that was good enough for a Wild Card berth, but a loss to the Giants in the one-game WC playoff quickly dashed the team’s postseason aspirations.

Of course, the ’16 season might have lasted a while longer if not for the failing health of the team’s vaunted pitching staff down the stretch – Jacob deGrom (elbow) and Steven Matz (shoulder/elbow), who combined for a 3.21 ERA, spent much of the second half of the season on the disabled list, with neither healthy enough to pitch the final month of the season. Both deGrom and Matz are expected to be full-go for training camp, as is another vaunted member of the rotation, Matt Harvey, who is coming back from mid-season surgery for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which begs the first pressing question …

[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Baseball | 2017 Player Rankings | Mock Draft]

Q: What is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, and what does it mean for Matt Harvey?

Simply put, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) is the compression of blood vessels between the collarbone and rib cage. Repetitive stress in that area is known to be among the potential causes of TOS, which is why pitchers can be at higher risk than others – in recent years, notable pitchers that have dealt with TOS include Phil Hughes, Tyson Ross, Jaime Garcia, Josh Beckett, Chris Carpenter, and Chris Young. TOS surgery involves removing the player’s top rib to relieve pressure (which apparently sounds worse than it really is). The difference between Harvey and the others listed here (and many of those not listed here that have also dealt with TOS) is that Harvey is dealing with recovery from TOS surgery at a younger age (27).

One pitcher who went through this process at a younger age than Harvey is Tampa Bay’s Alex Cobb, who had TOS surgery in November of ’11 at age 24. Said Cobb about how he felt coming off surgery:

“When I woke up from that surgery, I felt like a shotgun went off in my shoulder. It felt fine once I started pitching again, but I just didn’t regain my velocity right away until later in the 2012 season … I had the best season of my career in 2013. Every once in a while now, I just have a little tightness in my neck.’’

A perusal of Cobb’s PitchF/X data on Fangraphs shows that his average fastball velocity in that ’12 season was 90.0 mph (he posted a 4.03 ERA and a 7.0 K/9), while his velocity in ’13 averaged 90.7 mph (he posted a 2.76 ERA and a 8.41 K/9).

Harvey, who sat out the ’14 season after Tommy John surgery, was averaging nearly 96 mph on his fastball in 2013 and 2015, but dipped to 94.5 mph last season before being shut down. It seems reasonable to expect Harvey to be able to rebound from TOS and boost his fastball back over 95 mph, especially given his relative youth and bulldog demeanor. But it might be wise to use Cobb as a reference for expectations as to Harvey’s timetable for getting back to top form. There’s a reasonable chance that we won’t see the best of what we’ll get from Harvey in ’17 until sometime in the second half. As the No. 31 starting pitcher being taken on average in Yahoo drafts, I won’t be an active Harvey buyer on draft day, but I’d certainly be interested if he fell into the mid-to-late 30s.

Q: What’s the story down on the hot corner?

Jose Reyes played pretty well after joining the Mets in early July, finishing the final three months of the ’16 campaign as a borderline top 70 offensive player in roto leagues. His 162-game pace was for 21.6 home runs, 24.3 steals and 121.5 runs. So it’s clear that the 33-year-old still offers intrigue if he can find his way into more regular playing time, something that could very well happen at third base, where David Wright is trying to stave off back issues and hold things down in ’17, something he hasn’t managed to do since ’14 – he’s played less than 40 games each of the past two seasons. Coming off of neck surgery, Wright is just starting to partake in the simplest of baseball activities (playing catch), which is to say he remains a major question mark heading into the spring.

The Mets also have a considerable question mark at first base in Lucas Duda, who has been fighting back issues for the past couple seasons and was limited to just 47 games last season. With that in mind, in addition to Wright’s health, there has been some thought to giving Wright some time at first base in ’17. All of this is to say that there’s a very good chance Reyes, who can also fill-in at shortstop and even second base (in a pinch), ends up with something close to 500 at bats, especially if he proves to be able to keep up his run-scoring pace from last year (again, the Mets scored the fifth-fewest runs in the league in ’16). As a 3B/SS-eligible player being drafted in just 42 percent of Yahoo leagues, and going well outside the top 200 on average, Reyes could end up being one of the better deep sleepers in ’17 drafts.

Q: How is Michael Conforto going to find meaningful playing time?

The quick answer is that he’s probably not. The former Oregon State standout and ’14 top 10 overall draft pick quickly ascended to New York, making a splash in his 56-game Mets debut in ’15, hitting 9 home runs and posting an .841 OPS. Unfortunately, his ’16 campaign saw his OPS dip to .725 and his K% jump to 25.6. His power numbers leveled off (12 HRs in 109 games) and his issues with left-handed pitching became more glaring (.336 OPS vs LHP in 62 career ABs).

Mets right fielder Jay Bruce was thought to be an obvious candidate to be traded this past offseason, which would have opened up a starting spot for Conforto. But with the team deciding to hang on to Bruce (at least for the time being), Conforto looks like a candidate to open the season with Triple-A Las Vegas. He’s had no problems crushing minor league pitching up to this point, but he can go there with a clear directive to work on a plan against southpaw pitching while also cutting down on strikeouts in general.

Given the current shaky nature of Conforto’s fantasy prospects, it’s curious to note that he’s still being selected just a handful of outfielders behind Bruce, and ahead of centerfield teammate Curtis Granderson, both players that have guaranteed playing time and a much more bankable track record of fantasy success than Conforto. Bruce and Granderson certainly deserve to have their names called on draft day, but Conforto is probably better suited for your Watch List, an interesting talent that you want to be prepared to add if/when things trend back in the right direction.

Mets Projected Lineup

Curtis Granderson, OF

David Wright, 3B

Yoenis Cespedes, OF

Jay Bruce, OF

Neil Walker, 2B

Asdrubal Cabrera, SS

Lucas Duda, 1B

Travis d’Arnaud, C

Mets Projected Rotation

SP Noah Syndergaard

SP Jacob deGrom

SP Steven Matz

SP Matt Harvey

SP Zack Wheeler

CL Jeurys Familia

MR1 – Addison Reed

#_author:Brandon Funston #_uuid:73e8d20b-5300-3a0e-970b-a513069ca4ee #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #Fantasy Baseball #_revsp:54edcaf7-cdbb-43d7-a41b-bffdcc37fb56

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