Just an open page for me to drop notes/ideas/things I'm hearing/seeing/working on or just caffeinated or lack of sleep thoughts on football items.
9/8 MON
(7:41amET)
Obviously, we’ve got a lot of football to talk about today and all week and the rest of the year. The FF season has begun and thus a new reporting flow/schedule of events on FFM, so let me go over the week ahead...
-- MONDAYS are mostly dedicated to our Executive Summary, where we have three initial reaction notes from each Sunday game live watch and then list five (+/-) players in various categories for the week such as: waivers (+/-), trading (for/away), sleepers, quittables, IDPs, DSTs. All led off by a general State of the Union/mood for the week, as it sits pre-MNF.
The Executive Summary is a monster report, usually 5,000-10,000 words. I start working on it the night prior and it’s done when it’s done on Mondays, the goal is to publish it by 6-7pmET Monday night, before the MNF game. I’ll get it out as fast as I can.
Mid-morning on Monday’s the TNF game report from the week prior will publish to start out the reporting week. This past Week 1 was different with the Friday night game, so the TNF game report (DAL-PHI) published last week and the Friday night game (LAC-KC) will publish today.
The Monday Night Football chat room on the FFM-Betting Discord will be open and active for tonight for those subscribers to ‘Betting’/the private chat.
-- TUESDAYS are geared to the waiver night/week...
I work on all the data/stats from the prior week and adjust/prepare for the first look at the projections for the upcoming FF game week. Those new-week projections will post anywhere from 5-7pmET on Tuesdays.
8:30pmET is our weekly Tuesday Night Waivers private video Q&A where we go over the waiver scenarios, players, questions, FAABs and priorities, and trading buy low/sell high, early betting items, and Dynasty questions...a waiver focused show, but could go any direction, except NO sit-start questions (too early in the week to consider yet).
All throughout the day, game reports will post/publish as I can get them processed and published. Sunday-Monday-Tuesdays are 15+ hour workdays for me...I try to get the game reports done as fast as I can, but I try not to rush combing through the tape looking for opportunity. The more that I rush this, the more likely I could miss a hidden opportunity or issues in hiding.
-- Game Reports...
Game reports will post all week, every week. Many will hit WED-THU-FRI.
I go through the tape of each game, after watching the games live prior and report out what I am seeing -- try to find hidden things, trying to get a feel for seemingly/perceived good teams that are secretly bad or vice-versa, and trying to confirm the great teams and the truly awful teams...same vibe for the players -- what’s working, what’s a fraud or luck.
It’s a chore to write up 16 game reports in a week. It’s nearly impossible to write a novella on each game, everything I see/feel from the tape without a legit 100+ hour work week...and that type of work week will physically crush me, so I am vowing not going to do that to myself anymore (except maybe Week 1-2 because they are so critical to understand the new season).
So, I will try to do the full game reporting that everyone enjoys...but some of them I will have to either shrink to a bullet point version or if I think it is a game tape that doesn’t have a ton of radical notes or is better if you see me talk about it -- I will do some game reports via a video where I talk about my scouting of the game.
I will definitely watch/study every game tape, it’s the most critical thing I can do each week...but how I report them out will shift based on time. I am only one human.
-- Chalk Talk Database, sad news...
Our new project of the year, that we worked on all offseason/preseason...we have to put this new project offering on ice for the rest of the season.
Ross Jacobs has been the driving force for this project and has built and maintained all the data, but he got hit with a 1-2 punch of some ‘life things’ that is gonna keep him from being able to keep Chalk Talk going day-to-day throughout this season...right now.
So, to our subscribers to this new effort...I so appreciate you checking it out and taking a chance on it and supporting this new, critical project, but we have to put it on ice right now because it is a massive work effort to maintain week-to-week in-season and Ross will not be able to work it for the next little bit of time.
Totally unforeseen circumstances but definitely circumstances that we need to hit the pause button on it, for now. Keep Ross in your prayers. He’ll contribute to the football scouting this season as he is able.
Current ‘Chalk Talk’ subscribers, please be sure to halt your Patreon auto-renewal...and those who had it auto-renew for the upcoming month. We’ll get that credited, etc. This is all just hitting like an earthquake, so we’ll get you taken care of this week. We will make everything right this week.
-- Actual football notes! Kinda...
So many things to discuss from Sunday, but a lot of that is going into the Executive Summary.
Just a quick spot check of injury items we’ll be getting more info on today...
George Kittle’s hamstring injury...looks like this could be a couple of week thing. We’ll dive into Jake Tonges and all the other waiver TE options today and all week.
Drake London sprained his shoulder and is considered day-to-day, but it looks like he avoided major injury. ATL may be without London or Mooney Week 2.
We’ll find out about the true extent of the Xavier Worthy injury today, most likely.
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