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Online fantasy football drafts are as ubiquitous to fantasy football as cheat sheets and mock drafts. They are convenient and efficient. An online draft will tell you who was picked, who is still available, and suggest players that may be appropriate to select with each of your upcoming selections. And if you’re not able to decide on a player, the autodraft feature will faithfully pick a player for you. Even if you don’t know the NFL from a divot in the gridiron, an online draft will almost guarantee that every fantasy team in the league will be a contender.
That’s all great if you have a hedonistic slant – someone that constantly seeks easy, short-term gratification. But if you have a more stoic attitude, you may want to consider a live draft. A live draft will lend your league some grit. If team owners want to seriously contend for the title, they will need to come to the draft prepared. And in a live draft, “mommy autodraft” will not be there to bail out little Timmy.
Because a live draft is not online nor automated, you need a way to keep track of players that have been picked and players that are still available. The best way to do this is with an old-school Draft Board and Player Labels.
Happily, there’s still a large demand for Draft Boards and Player Labels, and they are easy to find online. A quick Google search will turn up tons of options. There are jumbo Draft Boards, colorful Draft Boards, glossy Draft Boards, and flashy Draft Boards. Unfortunately, most of these Draft Board sets come with jumbo, colorful, glossy, and flashy price tags as well. If only they weren’t so expensive!
That’s where Football Weblog comes in. We have a Draft Board and Player Labels ready to print in PDF format for no cost. So why not print your own Draft Board and Player Labels for free? It’s easy and fast to do.
You may not think much of Football Weblog’s Adopt-A-Player players right now – but eventually you will. Do the names Jerry Jeudy, Tua Tagovailoa, and Najee Harris mean anything to you? Of course, they do. They are among pro football’s hottest and brightest young stars. But back in 2017 they were in the same shoes as our current adopted players – just highly touted high school gridders. So, get to know these kids. It will be fun to track their college careers as they showcase their talents for the NFL scouts and vie for an early round draft pick in a few years. And remember you heard of these guys here first!
This year’s random selection of a top 50 high school skill player prospect is, for the second year in a row, a running back. I’d like to introduce to you…
Since the dawn of professional football, mankind has credited its players to being almost godlike – perhaps even being visitors from the stars. What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings help to shape NFL history? And, if so, might Football Weblog’s One Page NFL Schedule be created by alien beings?
There’s no question that these schedules are other-worldly. How else is it possible to compress an 18-week, 272-game regular-season schedule onto an 8-1/2” x 11” single page?
See for yourself. To access Football Weblog’s One Page schedules, click the blue NFL Schedules button below, or select NFL Schedules from Football Weblog’s menu. You’ll be taken to the NFL Schedules page with access to all of Football Weblog’s extraterrestrial-inspired printable NFL schedules. Enjoy!
Can’t decide what to name your fantasy football team? Look no further. We brought in former 7-Eleven savant Jimbo Henderson to develop the perfect fantasy football team name finder tool, and he certainly did not let us down! Jimbo knows a thing or two about names. He’s the gentleman that coined the handle “roller dogs” to the weenies that are cooked to perfection on the stainless-steel marvel that is the hot dog roller machine. Reference the Fantasy Football Team Name Finder form below to discover your perfect fantasy football team name. There’s a button at the bottom of this post for those of you that would like a PDF printout. Thanks Jimbo!
Click the blue button for a printable PDF:
Fantasy Football Team Name Finder
Every head coach in the NFL can point to another head coach who’s most responsible for helping him secure his coveted position. This lineage can be traced back through the years to form a so-called coaching tree. Of today’s current list of 32 NFL head coaches, I’ve identified seven coaching trees. Here’s a look at them.
Click the blue button below to open a printer-friendly PDF to check it out.
2022 NFL Coaching Tree
2022 NFL Coaching Tree
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably at least heard of Wordle. The game has exploded in popularity the last few months and, from someone who plays Wordle regularly, I can understand why. It is seriously addicting and fun to play.
Like a myriad of other games that have gone viral, you would expect Wordle to be played on an app. It’s not. It runs entirely in your web browser from The New York Times website. Best of all, it’s totally free to play.
Wordle is a simple game to play. You are given six opportunities to guess a random, 5-letter word of the day. With each guess, the game will indicate which letters you’ve gotten right. The background of the letter turns green if it is in the word and in the correct spot; yellow if it’s contained in the word, but in the wrong spot; dark gray if it’s a letter that’s not contained in the word.
When you’re done with the Wordle puzzle for the day, a slick little ‘share’ feature pops up that makes it easy to share your results by text, email, or social media, and it does it in such a way that the answer is not revealed. That’s one of the best aspects of the game. Everyone can share their daily scores with one another to commiserate on a tough word, revel in a good day, or whatever. Of course, there’s always the opportunity to mix in a little trash talking.
After being introduced to Wordle and enjoying the game for a few weeks, I started thinking. Sure, Wordle is entertaining and addictive to play, but what would take the game to a new level? Then it hit me. Why not create a schedule and have friends and family play head-to-head Wordle, fantasy football style? I present to you Fantasy Wordle!
When playing normal Wordle, each day is a game in and of itself. You guess the word, you brag or complain to your social clique, and you’re done for the day. You have no skin in the game. Fantasy Wordle, on the other hand, is normal Wordle on steroids. If you want to win your league, you need to consistently outdo a new opponent each day, build a playoff-qualifying win-loss record, and campaign your way through the playoff bracket. Do you believe your Wordle skills will allow you to dominate your league? Here’s your chance to prove it.
This is how I set up our Fantasy Wordle league. You can imitate it verbatim, or fine-tune things as you see fit. My goal was to keep it as simple as possible. If you decide to add more detail to your league, just remember that commissioner duties are done by hand. All league maintenance is dealt with by you. There are no Fantasy Wordle websites to host your league.
The first thing to do is scrounge up a group of brave individuals that are willing to give the league a try. This was easy for me since I was already part of a Wordle troop of eight people that had been sharing our Wordle results. If you can only marshal up six players, that should work just fine too, but I think the more people you have – up to a point, anyway – the better. (How cool would it be to mirror the NFL with a league of 32?) Just keep in mind that you’ll want an even number of players for matchup purposes.
Last July I introduced the Adopt-A-Player concept. Adopt-A-Player is an annual happening in which a top high school football prospect is randomly selected with the intention of following his football career. Speedy running back Will Shipley from Weddington High School, NC, was chosen as our inaugural Adopt-A-Player member. How did Shipley do this past season? Well, read on as we update you on his gridiron exploits.
Shipley committed to playing his college football at Clemson. As a true freshman, he made an immediate impact, rushing 149 times for 738 yards (5.0 average) with 11 touchdowns. Shipley caught the ball 16 times for 116 yards and averaged 27.1 yards on 14 kickoff returns. He even threw a two-yard touchdown pass.
Shipley’s 11 rushing touchdowns were the second-most by a true freshman at Clemson since the NCAA adopted permanent freshman eligibility in 1972, superseded only by Travis Etienne’s 13 touchdown season in 2017.
He was hurt in the NC State game on Sept. 25. The injury initially looked gruesome. The fear was that Shipley tore his ACL, but it turned out to be a less-serious tibia injury. It ended up causing him to miss just the Boston College and Syracuse games.
Shipley also missed the Nov. 13 game versus Connecticut. He was available to play, but Clemson opted to rest the bumped and bruised Shipley.
Shipley received many accolades for his freshman season efforts. To name just a few, he was selected second-team Freshman All-American according to The Athletic, fourth-team All ACC pick by Phil Steele, and All-ACC Academic Team selection.
We’re looking forward to seeing how Shipley does in the upcoming 2022 season. Clemson will take on the Furman Paladins in their season opener on September 10th.
The NFL released its 2021 Records and Milestones and Postseason Media Guide on Friday. These are very interesting and extensive guides that you need to check out. They are filled with loads of interesting information — perfect for perusing while waiting for the next playoff game to begin.
Select the blue buttons below to access. Otherwise they’re always available from our menu under NFL Publications.
2021 NFL Postseason Media Guide
2021 NFL Records & Milestones
The NFL announced the Saturday and Sunday night schedule for Week 18, Season Finale Weekend, on Saturday, January 8 and Sunday, January 9.
The week kicks off with a doubleheader on Saturday:
The regular season will conclude with the Chargers at Raiders — kickoff at 8:20 PM ET.
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated to show all of the Week 18 games. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu.
The NFL announced the following two additional changes for the Week 17 schedule on Sunday, January 2, 2021:
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated to show these changes. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu.
The NFL is seeing a new, highly transmissible form of the Coronavirus disease this week resulting in a substantial increase in cases across the league. As such, they have shuffled the Week 15 schedule in an attempt to minimize the problems caused by this recent COVID uptick. These are the schedule changes:
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated to reflect these changes. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu
The NFL announced yesterday an update to the Week 17 schedule:
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated and are current as of the time of this post. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu
The NFL is changing the kickoff time for two Games.
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated and are current as of the time of this post. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu
The NFL announced today several scheduling changes for Weeks 13 and 15.
In Week 13, on Sunday, December 5:
The four teams to play on Saturday, December 18 in Week 15 have been determined:
The remaining three games that were waiting to be determined will play on Sunday, December 19:
Football Weblog’s One Page Schedules have been updated to reflect these changes. Click the blue NFL Schedules button below to be taken to the NFL Schedules page, or access the page from the menu.