The Year of the Steal

The story I heard on how the thieves were able to mastermind absconding with Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is that the thief stymied the museum's security system by lowering themselves from the roof and opening a window then making off with the painting. Not quite the opening scene from The Thomas Crowne Affair, but amazing nonetheless.

Now there will be a full investigation into exactly how last night happened, but first let's take a quick look at what happened and who did it.

For context, "appropriate" amounts of money were spent on Brees ($35), Brady ($29), Rivers ($20), Romo ($17) and Peyton ($33). Bids that were between slightly high and "what were they thinking?" were heard for Palmer ($12), Flacco ($20), Eli ($14), Cutler ($11) and Kolb ($10).

But witness the quickness with which the following getaways were purpatrated: Aaron Rodgers went for $16, Matt Schaub went for $11 and Brett Favre for $7. Last year, Rodgers threw for 4434 yards and 30 TDs and ran for 5 more. Schaub threw for 4770 yards and 29 TDs. And Favre threw for 4202 and 33 TDs.

At Running Back, things were slightly less puzzling, with the biggest surprises being Chris Johnson at $51 and Adrian Peterson at $49 while Michael Turner also went for $49.

Interestingly, the WRs all seemed to go at reasonable prices, with Andre Johnson at $26, Randy Moss at $25, Miles Austin at $22, Larry Fitzgerald at $20 down to Muchostinko at $7. The surprise was just how much money was spent on TEs this year. However, given that Gates and Clark, among others, are projected to score as much as Jahvid Best and Steve Smith, perhaps the $16 and $14 was a bargain for them.

So how did it happen? One theory is that Pep & Cheez's master plan of sitting on a wad of cash as a decoy duped them into thinking they had no chance for Aaron Rodgers, Ronnie Brown and some of the other late picks.

Another theory is that the auctioneer had a stutter. Personally, I can't imagine anything worse, and frankly, if that were so, we might still be drafting. Seriously though, if I was slow to say "sold" a few times and it cost you the player you wanted, tough nuts. No, I mean I apologize.

And of course there was the flurry of rule change suggestions causing so many complaints that even Lubert seemed a voice of reason. Did the one change that went through (unanimously), expanding the auction to 14 players per position regardless of players kept, throw off seasoned vets, causing them to over-value certain players, leaving bargains at the end? We may never know. But consider this - the average cost of the first 11 QBs, RBs and WRs was $24. For the last 3 it was $16. Coincidence? I don't think.

I'm sure by now the question in all of your minds is this: who will win it all. According to the league website projections, the team with the best starting 8 is - the Sprockets! Here are all the teams' starting 8 by projections:

Sprockets 1,366
Brokerage 1,342
Office 1,340
RedBandits 1,336
TeamGump 1,332
Turd 1,329
DalesDMats 1,316
SemiP 1,306
PepNCheez 1,297
TimNKumar1,272
Fatties 1,264
Wombats 1,260
IT 1,251
Disaster 1,214

Recognizing that having a bench is important, counting all 16 positions, Brokerage and the Turd have (by over 200 points) the deepest teams, with the Fatties, Sprockets and Gumpsters bringing up the rear. Is it strange not to have the Turd bringing up the rear? (HA! Those jokes never get old!) (Or do they?)

So the question is: does this mean anything? Should we all just save ourselves the trouble and send Feldman our money (again)? Or Lubert (again)? Or the Turd??? But surely that's one of the signs of the Apocolypse, no? Let's look inside the numbers for a minute.

The projections have Pit QB scoring 329 points this year despite Roethlisberger having more success passing at underage girls while NE QB is good for 330 despite a healthy Brady and Welker, no rushing game and no defense. Kevin Kolb is projected for 348 and Favre 336. And most surprising, Cutler is projected to throw for more TDs than INTs. I cannot tell if pick-sixes count as part of his projected 25 TD passes on the site. It is interesting to note that Cutler is also projected to have more chins than yards rushing, so they got that right. (By the way, when I did a search for a Cutler picture, this is what came up. Inspire confidence SemiP?)

At RB, Chris Johnson is projected to lead the league with 1497 yards rushing. I would be stunned if CJ leads the league again and floored if 1497 is enough to lead the league. In the last 10 years, 34 times running backs have rushed for more than 1500 yards in a season. Only 5 players have done it 3 times (Portis, Edge, LT2, Shaun Alexander and Tiki Hut).

Adrian Peterson is projected to lead the league with 14 rushing TDs and only 4 other RBs are projected to score 10 or more. In the last 10 years, 95 backs have scored 10+ rushing TDs and 33 of those have scored 14 or more. OK, you say, but in today's NFL it's RBBC. Well, in each of the last 2 years, 4 backs have scored 14 or more. And this is not counting receiving TDs.

For WRs and TEs, only two, Randy Moss and Dallas Clark, are projected to score more than 9. However, in the last 10 years, 73 times WRs and TEs have scored 10 or more, including 27 in the last 3 years alone.

I'd guess by now if anyone is still reading, you're probably asking "Watchdog, what's the &*%@*! point?" Well my point, and I do have one, is that "You play to win the game!" No, that's not it. My point is that some players will vastly overreach their projections. And while the projectors have, apparently, tried to be conservative, particularly with RBs and WRs, some will underachieve as well. So if there's just one question left, it's this. Do you feel lucky punk? Well do you?

Is that Sean Penn with Harry?