fantasy sports

The thing I like most about daily fantasy games is having a thing to do with all this football knowledge that "it's my job" is only so much an excuse to accumulate. My job doesn't need me to know ahead of time that so-and-so has an 8-foot manbeast at running back and that the direction state university they're playing this week really should have gone Division III a decade ago. I don't really remember how all this information was acquired. It kinda assembled in my brain and sits there.

I can only foist so much of it on phone calls with friends (I mean, eventually you do have to ask about the kids) and the mgoslackchat. So I play Draft Kings, whom you may have noticed have been one of our best supporters for a very long time now, and who you also many have noticed are all over the place lately.

But remember these games are about exploiting market inefficiency. That blitz is your friend; they're sucking in tons of new players who don't know exactly what I'm talking about. And Ohio State fans.

Unfortunately the secret's out about the beast, and Buckeyes Bucking against Indiana is a smart play. So I've got a new dude. He is playing a team that doesn't stop anything, and his team is just starting to block everything, and his game just got moved to the early slot so his competition is unbalanced, and half the people in the pool are all gonna have the same guys. Don't listen to the weatherman who says the weather's gonna be clearer than you thought. I say it's gonna pour.

Details:

• $100,000 prize pool.
• First place wins $10,000
• FREE for new users or $3 to enter
• Top 7,850 scores win money guaranteed
• Starts on Saturday, October 3rd at 12:00 PM EST
• Salary Cap Style Drafting. $50,000 to select 9 spots.
• Roster Format: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 2 Flex

And it's over six ounces! That's like a double whammy!

Ah, Golden Tate. You made a good rival, a better Stuffing the Passer puppet, and most recently an excellent number two to Calvin Johnson. But the reason I love Golden Tate the most was he was money on my fantasy team last year. And whenever I cheered for him people thought I was rooting for the Lions and felt sorry for me.

It's weird to have these feelings for former rivals. I'm not like Ace, who as we speak is probably in some dank Ann Arbor basement hoping to draft Carlos Hyde because Alex Boone is blocking for him. Go ahead Ace!

In fact, this time I welcome you to draft all the Urban Meyer quarterbacks. Wait are there any Urban Meyer quarterbacks? Ah yes, Alex Smith: drafted by Ute fans who are bad at trolling everywhere.

I can get behind a Badger or a Husker (hey Abdulla is cheap!), but I usually avoid rival-rival guys in fantasy because there's a wrongness. Unless he was a puppet. Or if he's still underpriced and could win you 100 large. Then it's okay.

NFL starts tonight. First NFL game of the year with our fantasy partners at Draft Kings starts Sunday.

DETAILS:

• $1,000,000 prize pool
• First place wins $100,000
• FREE for new users or $3 to enter
• Top 84,950 scores win money guaranteed
• Starts on Sunday, September 13th at 1:00 PM EST
• Salary Cap Style Drafting. $50,000 to select 9 spots. 8 players and 1 defense.
• Roster Format: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex and 1 Defense

It's SO CLOSE.

It's so close your phone is dinging it at you because you put it in as an all-day event and there's a three-day auto-reminder.

It's so close that you know how when you get to Thursday evening and you think "where has the week gone?" because it went by that fast, well that is all the time since today that went by.

It's so close that you don't have to say a date, just an Anglicized version of an ancient Norwegian day of the week to describe when it's happening.

It's so close…well it's so close our contest at fantasy partners Draft Kings this week is actually A MICHIGAN COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME THAT TAKES PLACE THIS WEEK!

Details:

• $100,000 prize pool
• $10,000 first place prize
• Free for new users or $3 to enter
• Top 1,150 scores win money guaranteed
• Starts Thursday, September 3rd at 6:00 PM EST
• Salary cap drafting style to select 9 players
• Roster format: 2 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, and 2 Flex

By now if you've been paying attention at all you should know things like how to get a free copy of HTTV by starting a Draft Kings account and depositing $15 or more, or that Jake Rudock is starting for Michigan in this game whatever coyness is coming from Schembechler Hall.

By now you should be quivering. It's that close.

[Upchurch]

We had a little preseason meeting of the MGoBloggerati last week. Due to some oversight, we unfortunately had this meeting at a bar with TVs and the Lions preseason game on those TVs. So no, we didn't get much planning done with a table full of football bloggers who had football in front of them, but Brian had this fantastic idea:

What if the NFL preseason actually counted? Teams would have unlimited rosters, but you could only play your 1st stringers for the 1st quarter, and your 2nd stringers in the 2nd, and so on. Play in a quarter and you lose your eligibility for the rest of them. Everybody wins!

In things that somebody wins:

Football season means we're gonna start getting back to picking daily/weekly fantasy games to congregate in with our fantasy partner Draft Kings. This week's is an NFL preseason contest because frankly that's what we're all paying attention to right now (sorry boss). And since it's early we just went with a free one anyone can play:

Details:

• $100,000 prize pool.
• First place wins $10,000
• FREE for everyone to join - no deposit required
• Top 23,150 scores win guaranteed
• Starts on Sunday, September 13th at 1:00 PM EST
• Salary Cap Style Drafting. $50,000 to select 9 spots. 8 players and 1 defense.
• Roster Format: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex and 1 Defense

Hit the link to join.

Smart pick:

I noticed Kelvin Benjamain has torn his ACL. Although the rookie vying to take his targets tweaked his hamstring last week and missed the Miami game, Funchess should be good to go. And the nice thing is you have to scroll a loooong way to get to him.

Football.

No, seriously: football.

Look at the calendar. Look what tomorrow is.

Football.

Like: football.

It has been so long, and I've forgotten half of what I knew at the end of last season, but there is football on the horizon. And just like that, our daily fantasy partner Draft Kings has released their big—and I mean BIG—NFL Millionaire Maker contest.

What I mean by big: $2 million to the winner, and $10 million going out overall.

You don't get to argue anymore; if you've got your account with DK already—and by now you should—you are getting in on this. If you don't have an account, and you're at all interested in trying this out, go set up your account, get a free HTTV copy while you're at it, and then get in on this. You know more about football (football!) than any person has any right to, and you have until almost the middle of September to get your team right.

Details:

• $10,000,000 prize pool.
• First place wins $2,000,000
• Enter for just $20
• Top 125,700 scores win money guaranteed
• Starts on Sunday, September 13th at 1:00 PM EST
• Salary Cap Style Drafting. $50,000 to select 9 spots. 8 players and 1 defense.
• Roster Format: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex and 1 Defense

Thanks to the most contrived controversy since Capcom tried to lead parents into revolt against Mortal Kombat, you cannot draft Tom Brady. You can get Kirk Cousins for $5,000, but why do that when you can get Chipmunk Kirk Cousins for like a quarter of that?

Parick Barron

At halftime of an eventual 71-69 win over Illinois of late January last year, Izzo explained to ESPN sideline reporter Allison Williams: "We had guys not catching the ball, but I've got some weird guys in there right now." In the hall of Tom Izzo excuses it ranks primarily for catchiness—certainly not for originality. This past December, in a press conference explaining his team's loss to Texas Southern, he blamed himself for going easy on his tired kids, then blamed early foul trouble for Valentine and "not enough bodies left."

We love to carp on Izzo's alibis, mostly in wonder at his acrobatic rationalizations. We feel justified in doing so because we're two years removed from a national championship appearance and the best freshman class since that one, and Michigan's spending a fifth of its minutes with Andrew Dakich on the floor.

If you're looking over the list of dudes you can draft for your daily fantasy teams, or are subjecting yourself to the "okay, let's have some fun with this" brand of basketball Michigan's playing these days, you've seen the going get weird. The difference in Ann Arbor is Beilein's entire career here so far has been the going getting weird, then the weird turning pro.

State, meanwhile, hasn't had Javon Bess since regulation of Michigan's visit to Breslin. If Izzo just happens to lose to a team led by freshmen Beilein plucked last April from Rice and Dayton, I'm sure the old knob will mention that in a delicious presser.

Go pick some weird guys!

Details:

• $12,000 prize pool.
• First place wins $1,000
• $2 entry fee (FREE with first deposit).
• Top 1,350 are paid.​
• Starts on Tuesday, February 17 at 7:00 PM EST
• Salary Cap Style Drafting. $50,000 to select 8 players
• Roster Format: 3 G, 3 F, and 2 Utility
• First time depositors at DraftKings receive a 100% bonus up to $600​