MMQ: Some NFL players/coaches lash out at fantasy FB

Do bigtime MLB players gripe about fantasy baseball like this?

 

It started way before that. He had a fumbling problem at Tennessee and his mother became a major presence on Volunteer fan message boards for a time, defending her son and all but admitting he got "$100 handshakes" from boosters.

 

Check Matt Ryan's stats and get back to me on his average game.

 

No where do you even begin consider how much more television inventory baseball sells compared to football. There is no apples-to-apples comparison to be found in attendance or TV ratings because the industries are marketed far differently and have vastly different operational and financial structures and business strategies.

However, baseball revenues have gone from $3.6 billion in 2002 to $7 billion in 2010. While still short of the NFL's $9 billion or so, baseball is experiencing a period of accelerated regional growth due in large part to a revenue sharing system that provides owners with genuine growth incentives.

 

Matt Ryan average game, 2010: 232 yards passing, 1.75 TDs. He went over the magical fantasy bonus plateau of 300 yards once in 16 games. (He has had exactly one 300-yard game in each of his three seasons.) In seven of 16 games he threw for one or zero TDs, and in six of 16 games he threw for 225 yards or less. Not incidentally, the Falcons were 5-1 in those six games.

Great QB, in my view one of the top five in the game playing actual football. But he doesn't get nearly that level of appreciation, because people grade by numbers.

 

He threw 28 TDs last year. Those are big numbers. He wasn't anything resembling the game manager of his early days. He threw 42 times in one half the other day. He'll, the guy was graced with a cool nickname (Matty Ice) from Day One. Ryan gets plenty of credit for his abilities above and beyond not making mistakes. This isn't 2008.

 

I'll be the first to admit it... in the past a game like Bengals-Dolphins may not have had any rooting interest for me at all. But if I have Davone Bess or Brandon Marshall on my fantasy team, HEY! I have an interest in looking at this game!

What fantasy has done is lift the ratings for games that would have been considered bad matchups in the past. The elite games will always have their followers.

 

Like fantasy baseball, fantasy football has given many a broader and more knowledgeable view of the game.

Without fantasy football I doubt too many would realize how productive a QB that Josh Freeman is.

 

The TDs tied him for sixth in the league and the yards per game tied him for 15th. On a per-game basis he threw the same number of TD passes as David Garrard, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jon Kitna.

You seem to think we are arguing about whether Matt Ryan is a great player. We are not. But the things that make him great -- not throwing interceptions, not taking sacks, not going for the home run every time, being happy to roll the clock with a lead -- are not things that serve fantasy football players well, and I believe a lot of people let their perceptions and fandom for a guy color their view of how he performs in the real games. ESPN's fantasy rankings for 2011 put Ryan 11th -- behind Romo, Matt Schaub and Josh Freeman, among others.

I would take Ryan over Philip Rivers, who has a habit of holding the ball too long. But the general public believes Rivers is a superstar, because in the last three years he has averaged 31 TDs and 4,300 yards.

 

Put another way, YGBFKM: If fantasy had gripped the world in the 1960s as it does today, I think there would have been a robust debate about who was better between Bart Starr and John Brodie.

 

The other thing that helps the NFL is the event aura of the games. If baseball or NBA games were held once a week, you'd see the same thing.

I just bought the Michael McCambridge book on the history of the NFL and am looking forward to reading about how the league got to where it is today, popularity-wise.

 

Rivers is a superstar and a better QB than Ryan

Your point is a good one about fantasy football skewing the actual value of a player, especially in Orton's case. I just don't agree with it about Rivers.