The Worst Fantasy Football Draft Pick Ever Made ...

Last night during my fantasy football league draft I was witness to what might likely be the worst fantasy football draft pick ever made.

The first selection in the draft was a major surprise when new Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was taken first overall. I think this is a bad selection, but it’s definitely a high-risk-high-reward pick that will probably work out well for the player.

The second selection in the draft was Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who will likely be the first quarterback taken in many fantasy football drafts this season and is a great selection.

Then came the third pick, which was taken by one of the league’s players in the blink of an eye without a second guess, and it was so dumbfounding and idiotic that I almost missed my own first round selection out of sheer shock at what I had just witnessed. This league member drafted Kansas City Chiefs running back Peyton Hillis, a player that likely should’ve gone undrafted in our relatively small league, third overall above any other running back. I mean, come on, Peyton Hillis is probably not even dumb enough to draft Peyton Hillis third overall in his own fantasy football league.

Now I’ve talked many times before in my life, even a time or two on this very podcast, about the stupidity and idiocy of sports fans and this fantasy football pick is just another example of it. I’ve heard and seen sports homers time after time, but taking Peyton Hillis, who is likely the Chiefs second string back behind Jamaal Charles, third overall just because he’s a fan-favorite of Arkansas Razorbacks fans pretty much takes the cake.

I know that Hillis had a breakout season with the Cleveland Browns a couple of seasons ago and looked like he could be a budding star in the NFL, but his atrocious season last year made it seem like he was more of a fluke than a potential star. Let me point out that even if this was the same Hillis of two seasons ago that drafting him third overall would still be a terrible mistake. It’s the case of a fan acting with his heart and not his head and it frankly makes me love the fact that there’s a person this unbelievably dumb in my fantasy football league. It should make it all the more easy for me and others to defeat him and potentially win the league.  

Barkley Easily Athlete MVP of 'SNL' Hosts

There have been many professional athletes or former athletes that have hosted “Saturday Night Live” over the years; in fact, the number of athlete hosts approaches 30, but of all of those athlete hosts there is only one who has hosted multiple episodes. That is Pro Basketball Hall of Famer and current TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley, who last night hosted ‘SNL’ for his third time. 

Why is Barkley the only athlete or former athlete to ever host ‘SNL’ more than once? It’s because he’s the best, and in my opinion, it’s not even close.

“Saturday Night Live” has had athlete hosts for almost as long as the legendary sketch comedy show has existed. The very first athlete host was Pro Football Hall of Famer and legendary Minnesota Vikings quarterback Frank Tarkenton back in 1977. Other notable athletes who hosted the show include O.J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Deion Sanders, Jeff Gordon, Bill Russell, Joe Montana, Walter Payton, George Foreman, Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Lance Armstrong and Peyton Manning.

Almost always episodes hosted by athletes are absolutely horrible. Of that entire list I previously mentioned, only Manning really hosted a decent episode. It’s so bad when athletes host that most of the time when they’re announced a feeling of dread comes over me well before the famous “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night …” is read. We fans have been quite thankful that, other than Barkley, there hasn’t been an athlete host the show in three and a half years since Olympic gold medal winning swimmer Michael Phelps hosted (that was a particularly dreadful episode) in 2008.  

What sets Barkley apart though?

Most of it has to do with that fact that Barkley is just an all-around funny and fun-loving guy in real life. His exuberant personality has led many times to pregame, postgame and halftime shows on TNT basketball coverage being funnier than entire episodes of ‘SNL.’ Most athletes that ‘SNL’ has chosen to host other than Barkley simply don’t have these funny personas. In fact, Manning has absolutely zero personality, which is why the fact that his hosting stint wasn’t half-bad was extremely impressive and surprising.

There is one knock on Barkley that seems to pop up on social media sites like Twitter when Sir Charles stops by Studio 8H for ‘SNL’ and that’s that Barkley is a “bad actor” and “noticeably reads cue cards.” Both of those knocks are actually true, but I must ask, “what’s the big deal?” We all know going in that Barkley isn’t an actor and we also all know going in that these guys, including the cast members, read off of cue cards. If the humor of the show is funny and Barkley gets laughs, which he does, than these shouldn’t really hurt the episode.

Now, if I had to choose a list of the greatest hosts in ‘SNL’ history or my personal favorite ‘SNL’ hosts I doubt that Barkley would appear on either list, but when it comes to athletes hosting he honestly is a unanimous MVP.     

Peyton Manning not worthy of MVP votes

There are some people out there, experts included, who believe that Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning might receive a few MVP  votes when writers vote for the award following the end of the NFL season. Manning, of course, has been injured and hasn’t played a single down this year, but his loss for the Colts has led to 13 straight losses and the high probability of going 0-16. Manning not playing this year has proved more than ever how valuable he is and MVP does stand for Most Valuable Player. There is also no rule stating that a player must actually play to receive votes or even win the award. I wouldn’t be shocked if he received a vote or two or even more myself, but I do think even receiving one MVP vote would be wrong.

I think many, many decades ago when writers came up with the term Most Valuable Player that they truly meant that term to mean the Best Player of the Year, which most times is probably the case anyway. However, I think that sometimes, and this year is the case, that people seem to take the word ‘valuable’ in the award’s title way too seriously. We all know that Manning is incredibly valuable to the Colts, but Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is having an all-time great year at his position and other NFL players are having fantastic years as well. So, let’s end the ridiculous talk about Peyton Manning as MVP.  

$50 Million Dollar Baby

Overall number one NFL draft pick Sam Bradford from the Oklahoma Sooners is reportedly going to be the highest paid player in football without ever even playing a down in the league.

The St. Louis Rams are probably going to have to give Bradford a deal in the neighborhood of $50 million, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. It’s a sign that rookie contracts are continuing to rise in the NFL. Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford who was taken as the first overall draft pick last year was given a contract worth $41.5 million.

It is utterly ridiculous to think that Bradford could make more money than Super Bowl winning quarterbacks like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Drew Brees.

It’s dangerous for teams like the Rams to basically be forced into signing these outrageous contracts by agents and players when overall number one picks can prove to be busts. Bradford could easily become a great quarterback like Peyton Manning or Troy Aikman, but he could just as easily become a bust like JaMarcus Russell, David Carr and Tim Couch.

It’s also dangerous for the Rams to give Bradford so much money because he’s already proven to be injury prone. Bradford was seriously injured in his final year at college with the Sooners and forced to miss the majority of the season. He’ll surely be knocked around like a rag doll in the NFL, especially with the Rams only having the 24th projected offensive line in the league, according to football.about.com.

It would seem that the only real way for the NFL to avoid the rising rookie salaries would be to go to a rookie scale salary like the NBA does. In the NBA the draft picks have there own assigned salaries that ensures that the first overall pick makes more than the second pick and the second pick makes more than the third and so on. The contracts are each for two years with team options for a third and fourth.

The NBA has it 100 percent right when it comes to rookie contracts. The NFL desperately needs to go that route to ensure that unproven players like Bradford aren’t the richest athletes in the sport.