Die Macht » Pinturault dominated the icy Fa

I get many different kinds of questions about fantasy football, but one stands out, year after year, as everyones most pressing, stress-inducing inquiry:What are the best/worst draft positions to have?Remember 2007? You might, if reminded that was the year following LaDainian Tomlinsons record-setting campaign of 410 fantasy points, and a draft season during which everyone wanted the No. 1 overall pick -- and only the No. 1 overall pick.Remember last year? That was the one when everyone dreaded having the top pick, and frankly wed all have been happier with the five, so that someone else could make that impossible decision for us between Adrian Peterson, LeVeon Bell, Eddie Lacy, Jamaal Charles and Marshawn Lynch.How many of you hope against hope that you wont draw the dreaded 10-spot (or the 12, if your league is 12-team, etc.)? Heck, Ive got a local league that, for years, has elicited an audible groan -- often coupled by unprintable words -- from the owner who draws the last pick, as if it were a death sentence.Ah, but there is a simple solution to this conundrum, an oh-so-easy fix destined to melt all of your draft-positioning stress away.Have an auction.Gone are the complaints from nine owners about having no chance at owning Antonio Brown. Gone is the difficult decision as to what round in which to address the quarterback and tight end positions. Gone is the frustration of having that player you so desperately wanted stolen with the pick directly before yours, that player you simply could not justify taking so early as the round before.In an auction, youve got access to every player. If Brown is the player you desire, theres an easy way to get him: Open your wallet and pay $1 more than the others in the room will. If you want a top-heavy, star-studded juggernaut -- surrounding Brown with Cam Newton, Adrian Peterson and Rob Gronkowski, for example -- you can, so long as the combined prices of all four remain within your teams budget. You might wind up with nothing but $1 players surrounding them -- whats termed a stars-n-scrubs strategy -- but you gain the ability to own a style of team youd have no chance at securing in a draft.First, lets explain how an auction works: Each team in an auction is granted a predetermined budget, traditionally $200, with which to purchase a roster of players, typically 16 players in ESPN leagues. Players are nominated in a preset order, where a team nominates a player for bid at a specific price (which doesnt have to be $1). Teams can then up the bid, increasing it by $1 or even jumping it by $50 or more, and that process continues until no other team is willing to increase the active bid. An auctioneer -- youll want to choose an entertaining, yet forceful and organized individual to fulfill this role if you do the auction live -- then counts down the bid, Once, twice, SOLD! and then the process restarts with a new player nominee. This continues until every team has filled every available roster spot, and no team is allowed to exceed its budget in doing so.For more information on ESPNs auction drafts, including how to set up your own to conduct online, go right here.Though that probably sounds simple enough, success in an auction is an entirely different story. Strategy is paramount in an auction, which moves much more swiftly, engages your attention in many more dimensions and takes a lengthier amount of time than a draft. In a serpentine draft, an inexperienced owner can more easily hide behind any ranked list of players from any source. In an auction, players are often nominated in random order, market values (especially at specific positions) can quickly shift, often multiple times in the same auction, and bargains can appear at any stage, as opposed to mostly in the latter stages as is often the case in a draft.Crafting your strategyHeres the simple truth: Dont get cute.Strategy in an auction shouldnt be misconstrued as finding some unique angle, some particular -- or particularly unusual -- approach. West Coast Offense QB-WRs, Fifty-catch Running Backs and Age-25 Players Only might sound like snazzy strategies, but setting such parameters significantly hampers your team flexibility, and in the majority of cases, winds up causing you to waste auction resources, to overpay for certain players just to make it work. If youre trying to brand your strategy, youre probably doing it wrong.Strategy merely means crafting a plan of attack. For me, thats a meticulous approach to ranking and projecting players, from which I create a detailed price sheet -- well get into how to do that in a moment. If Ive done this correctly, auction strategy is easy: I aim to buy every single player I possibly can for cheaper than his projected price, refusing to overpay for anyone. Maintaining balance within the roster is also important, but the more detailed your price/cheat sheet, the easier your job at the auction table.The price/cheat sheetTheres nothing more critical to auction success than the price sheet. If you dont know what a player is worth in advance, how do you know what to pay at the auction table?Every price/cheat sheet should list every player you anticipate can or will be sold during the auction, in ranked order from the most to least valuable by position, with a price tag applied to each. Ideally, these will include cents -- as in, $20.35 is even more helpful than $20 -- and theyll be calculated off your own rankings and projections. To help you with this, Ive added dollar values to my own rankings, but its also a good idea to run your leagues specs through our Custom Dollar Value Generator for a second source. We also provide an auction cheat sheet for standard, 10-team, $200-cap leagues.Always ensure that the total value of the players you project to sell adds up to the total amount of the leagues available money in the auction; this means that in a 10-team, $200-cap league, the total prices of all your players needs be $2,000. This should also include your decisions on the percentage of the overall budget you feel the league will spend at each position. I find that quarterbacks usually comprise 8-10 percent, running backs 45-55 percent, wide receivers 35-40 percent, tight ends 4-8 percent and kickers and defense/special teams between half a percent and two percent.If you play in a league that has existed for multiple seasons, its often a good idea to ask your commissioner for past-years auction results, especially to give you a sense of the percentage of the budget to allocate to each position.From prices to planningOnce your price sheet is done, its time to decide on a plan of attack during the auction. Most importantly, decide how much youre willing to spend to acquire talent at each specific decision, and determine the amount of depth you require at each.For example: If you feel that owning a top quarterback is imperative, then youll probably need to budget $20-25 to secure the services of a Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson, and youll need to adjust your calculations at the other positions accordingly.Understand that this is different from the process of creating your initial price sheet: Thats pricing players across the entire league, as opposed to identifying your personal preferences. If you decided at the onset of creating your price sheet that you wanted to spend $1 on a quarterback and therefore allocated $10 to the quarterback position, you did it incorrectly and need to return to the previous step. Its entirely fine to set prices at quarterback that reflect those from our Custom Dollar Value Generator or our auction cheat sheet, yet decide that for your own team, you only want the $1 quarterbacks. These do not have to be the same.Thats not to say that you should lock yourself into those numbers, being completely inflexible. Theyre outlines rather than demands, and if you find, midstream, that all of your quarterback targets are selling for $5 more than your projected prices, do some quick math to shuffle your funds around. Better yet: If you land your desired quarterback for $10 beneath your projected cost, then thats an additional $10 you can allocate to other positions during the auction.Next, give a quick run-through of your price sheet to determine candidates to nominate when its your turn. Hype machines youre not targeting tend to be ideal choices; you want to note any player you think might sell for significantly more than your price, so that you can nominate them in the early stages.The tricks of the auction tableAs mentioned above, the ideal strategy is buy value, in which you try to roster as many players as possible for prices beneath whats listed on your cheat sheet.Still, here are some angles you can try to gain an edge:Set the market early. When auctions first hit the mainstream, it was commonplace to hear the advice, Dont buy any players during the first hour. In fact, show up an hour late, just to make sure you dont buy anyone, or Never, ever nominate a player you actually want until the second half of the auction.Both of these pieces of advice are so tired, so well-circulated, that the reverse often tends to be true: The bargain of more than half of the live auctions in which Ive participated in the past half-decade or so have actually been sold in the first 15 minutes, and in fact the bidding overall has been most conservative with the first 10 players.Be prepared at every stage of your auction, and in this case, its often a good idea to throw out a highly ranked player that you actually want at a given position. For example, if youre dead-set on acquiring either David Johnson, Todd Gurley or Ezekiel Elliott, the wisest move might be to make the one you want most your very first nomination, simply so that you can either set the perceived market for these similar-tier players, or perhaps sneak through the one you wanted most at the fairest price. Youd be surprised how often a $45 Todd Gurley gets thrown out there first, only to be followed by a $55 Johnson and $53 Elliott.Get your kicker out of the way. My home league hates this piece of advice, because they think theres nothing more boring than having to listen to the Once, twice, SOLD, slower-paced countdown in the early stages of an auction, when were talking about a $1 kicker. Theres a reason, however: Kickers should never, ever sell for more than $1, and the quicker you nominate yours, the higher the kicker on your cheat sheet youll acquire. Besides, even if your competition increases the bid to $2, thats $1 wasted, which is a win-win, especially since it means youre only going to nominate your next highest-ranked kicker with your next turn.Track every roster. Though this might seem like an overwhelming exercise, the advantage -- especially in the auctions latter stages, when funds are tight and roster spots dwindling -- can be substantial. Success in an auction isnt only about knowing where your own team stands, its also about knowing where your competition stands, in terms of ability to contend with you for your desired remaining targets.I cant tell you how many times Ive been in an auction, knowing full well exactly where my opponent stands in terms of remaining budget and available roster spots, and seen him or her lose out on a desired bid -- usually getting visibly aggravated -- merely because he/she failed to realize another team had more remaining money or had a similar need at that position. At any given point, I can tell you exactly what every team in the auction has left to bid and the positions left to fill, and I use that information to craft my late-round nominations, and often the bids themselves.Be the geek: Bring your laptop, if you must.Avoid the bidding wars. The excitement of rapid-fire bidding can lure you into an overbid, so in the early stages especially, dont get carried away when the price on Antonio Brown goes, $50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58, quicker than he can separate from the defense for a 70-yard score. Dive into them to throw your competition off the scent, but only do so knowing your precise limit. If thats $53, be prepared to stop at $53, rather getting coaxed into a $55 bid, then $57. ...Dont fall for the handcuffs. Its a common strategy in auctions for, after a projected starting running back is sold, one of the subsequent nominations to be that running backs primary backup. The angle is an attempt to coax the buyer of the former player to get caught up in a bidding war for his backup, in order to protect that teams investment. While handcuffing the player is a fair strategy if the prices reflect those on your cheat sheet, there is absolutely no reason to spend $10 on James Starks simply because I also bought Eddie Lacy for $32. This is especially true if you feel you got a bargain on the starter -- Lacy in this example -- providing you profit to spare that can be invested in his backup; this is a common trap.Its a much wiser strategy to instead invest that $10 in a player with a clearer path to a regular role, such as an Ameer Abdullah or Duke Johnson Jr.Dont fall in love with players. This goes hand in hand with spending the requisite time to come up with your own set of rankings, projections and dollar values. If youve properly valued every player, you already know precisely what you think each is worth, and there is no reason to deviate from that list. Once the cheat sheet is set, any player loves or hates should be cast aside; bidding additional dollars is negating the hard work you did in advance of the auction, at a time you were probably much more analytical rather than emotional about that players value.Never make a bid youre not willing to roster. This applies both to nominations as well as in-auction bids; you should never raise a players price to a level youre not willing to have on your final roster. Dont, for example, nominate Paxton Lynch for $1 (if you have no interest in him) merely because you think the room is full of Denver Broncos fans, because theres a chance that your opposition will realize hes a wiser dynasty- than redraft-league pick and stick you with him.In addition, dont excessively price-enforce, as you run the danger of acquiring a player in whom you had no interest. Bidding up players to what you perceive is their market value is called price enforcing, but remember that neither my rankings, our Custom Dollar Value Generator nor our auction cheat sheet is gospel, a set-in-stone list of prices for all leagues. Youll notice, in fact, that all three sources will give you different values, and your leagues final prices will also differ from those. You could be in a league of Philadelphia Eagles fans -- heck, you might also be one yourself -- who hate Eli Manning and refuse to pay to acquire him, and if you see that our AAP (average auction price) on our site is higher than his current bid, you might increase the bid and wind up stuck with a player in whom you have zero interest.Finally, never, ever get rattled in an auction, and even if you do, stand firm in the fact that you didnt get rattled. Confidence, consistently sticking to your plan and remaining calm and composed are the three things you need to be at the auction table. That means that even if you feel you made a mistake, proceed as if you didnt make any mistakes, because the auction pace proceeds so rapidly that youll quickly fall into another misstep otherwise, and besides, there is almost always an opportunity to correct a mistake in the latter stages anyway.Remember: If youve done your homework, youre the most knowledgeable owner at the auction table, because youve read this column as well as the dozens of other valuable advice columns in our Draft Kit, prepared a detailed cheat sheet as well as a polished auction strategy, and youve kept your cool at the auction table.Now go get em, you brand-spanking-new auction pro.Nellie Fox Jersey . Now, correct me if Im wrong but I saw one official distinctly pointing at the net indicating a good goal but after an inconclusive review they overturned the goal. Shouldnt the ruling on the ice (good goal) stand after an inconclusive review? Why was this overturned? James Veaudry Pembroke, ON -- Hey Kerry, Youll get a lot of these, but why was the Montreal goal against Nashville Saturday night overturned? Eller puts the puck on net and the on ice ruling from the ref behind the net is a Montreal goal. Robin Ventura Jersey . Two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the April 15 race in an area packed with fans cheering the passing runners. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured, including at least 16 who lost limbs. https://www.cheapwhitesox.com/ . The 31-year-old Spain midfielder hasnt played since Madrid lost in the Copa del Rey final to Atletico Madrid in May due to back and foot injuries. Roberto Alomar Jersey .com) - Richie Incognito has reportedly been admitted to a psychiatric care unit in Arizona. Early Wynn White Sox Jersey .Y. -- Paul Byron and Matt Stajan scored as the Calgary Flames started a five-game road trip with a 2-1 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon.VAL DISERE, France -- Frenchman Alexis Pinturault dominated the icy Face de Bellevarde course Saturday to post the fastest time in the first leg of World Cup giant slalom.Despite severely bruising his right hand in a training fall on Thursday, Pinturault was .65 seconds ahead of Stefan Luitz of Germany and .67 clear of five-time defending overall World Cup winner Marcel Hirscher of Austria. The second run is later Saturday.The French are proving hard to beat inn GS.ddddddddddddLast weekend, also in Val dIsere but on a different course, Mathieu Faivre won and four of the top five were French, with Pinturault in third place behind Hirscher.Hirscher has already lost to two Frenchmen in defense of his GS trophy after being runner-up to Pinturault in the season-opening race at Soelden, Austria. ' ' '