48 Days

thats all thats left untill the greatest time of the year. Football is getting so close. Finally trainng camp starts. That means lots of news, and lots of position battles. Paying attention to training camp and pre-season football is what makes for a great fantasy year. This is where you get a look at all the little things. Like targets, who is getting a lot of passes early on. Who might break out as a starting RB. It's all about preseason, thats were you gte a jump onthe competition. The only thing that kind of sucks for me and preseason, is I actually have to watch the second and third quarters when this year starters are off the field. As i said early in a post i have to draft all depth in one of my leagues. I'm only looking for players who will play next year, not this year, so I will be tunned into a lot of games this year. Luckly, I have the best channel ever created for man. The NFL Network. Now that i lost ESPN cause my US dish is down, NFL Network is my religion. The programming is phenomenal. NFL Total Access is basically a sportscentre hour long show only about football. Always great stories and anlaysis. Mostly cause they have current and old players on the show al the time, plus they do entertaining stuff. My favourite player was on last night, Chad Johnson. Obviously we all know how much shit talking he does, but the beuty of him is it is always backed up by great play. They showed a clip last night of him talking to Deangelo Hall of the Atl Falcons from last year. Here's a transcript of the conversation.

CJ - I got you beat, I already know your weakness.

DH - what weakness?

CJ - I know your weakness.

DH - What weakness, what's my weakness?

CJ - I know your weakness, you play DB!

Straight to the guys face, right in front of him, CJ comes so hard at this guy. I love it.

Last night I found a new hot pick for the year. He should fly under the radar a little bit and could prove to be quite good next year. You ready for it? Eli Manning. He did some good things last year that made people notice, but I still think he will be available around the 8 - 10th QB taken in a redraft. I was watching some film on him on NFl Network and the guy is remarkbly accurate. Also he seems to study and read defense's like his bro Peyton. Not nearly as well yet, but it looks like this guy could be that good. PLus he's got Plaxico, who is in his third year as a #1 WR, which history says is a WR best year, Shockey is a beast coming in healthy ready to play again, and Tiki is a top 5 option at RB. I predict big things for Eli in 2006, he's my Carson Palmer of this year.

ON a side note, Matt, Cal, I'm not sure i will be able at play at 7:07 sunday morning. I'm playing on seeing back to back movies saturday night, The Devil Wears Prada followed up by THe Lakehouse, so it should be a late night for me. I'll do my best.