Is Your iPhone Ready for Some Football?

For much of the United States, and increasingly, other countries, Sundays in the fall and winter months are dominated by one thing - football. And just because you happen to be of a geeky mentality doesn't mean you can't nurture your jock side through using your iPhone to get updated in near real-time to all the happenings in the NFL. One of my favorite free apps on the iTunes application store is "Pro Football Live", which provides score updates, play by play, current game situations, photos, news, and even the ability to talk back to other users through a feature called "Smack Talk".

Apple's most recent iPhone ads have highlighted the application store, and specifically, some of the games that have been developed for the nascent platform. But there's more to entertainment than video games and high scores.


You Can See Updated Scores from Around the League

With Pro Football Live, I don't need to go to ESPN.com or Yahoo! Sports to get all the scoring updates, and even if I'm away from the TV or radio, I can get the feeling of watching a game, by seeing the current game situation, including who has the ball, yard markers, downs and yardage.


You Can Talk Smack And Check Current Standings

And while I'm not getting streaming video, by using the Pro Football Live app, unlike TV, I have access to all the games at once, not just those being broadcast in my area. So if you're a fantasy football junkie, like me, you can toggle between today's Raiders/Chargers contest, and that of the Texans/Jaguars or Jets/Cardinals. You can, with a couple clicks of the phone, be on top of your game, and you can jump into "Smack Talk" to share your thoughts with other fans.


You Can View Recent Photos and News from the NFL

Pro Football Live also features "News" and "Photos" feeds from the leading sources, letting you get updated on which starters are expected to play or which players set personal records.

iPhone applications like Pro Football Live and MLB.com's At Bat have helped me be closer to all games when away from home, taking pro sports mobile. It's all part of how products like the iPhone can better reach across the digital divide and get into America's living rooms, or at least, entertain those who would rather be in their living rooms, instead of slogging along behind their significant other who won't let them watch the game.

The Even Geekier Approach to Fantasy Football

You would think with trying to keep the blog regular, working a full-time job, keeping active on all kinds of social networks, and raising two month old twins, I wouldn't need yet another time sink. But, clearly not knowing my own limits, I agreed to return to the world of Fantasy Football after taking a two-year hiatus, re-joining the league where I was active from 2001-2005, even though I haven't been paying attention to the NFL at all, and couldn't tell you the starters on just about any squad. So, why do I think I have a chance taking on a group of couch potatoes who have bye weeks and depth charts memorized? The answer: Because I'll be the biggest nerd in the room.

Here's what I do to keep myself challenging for the league title each year:
(I've won the 12-team league twice in five years and finished second once):

1. I don't pick favorite teams or favorite players.

When I was growing up, the San Francisco 49ers were the team of the decade. They won four Super Bowls, and Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and Roger Craig were superstars. But in the last decade or so, the team might as well have fallen into the Bay, and I don't really care. As a result, I'm not drafting them too highly or unfairly promoting my hatred of their rival.

2. I only bring a laptop to draft day, not a pile of magazines and highlighters.

While some guys show up with their dog-eared copies of ESPN the Magazine and Sports Illustrated or Football Weekly, and six colored markers, as well as the year's bye week schedule and an up to the minute injury report, I just bring my laptop and have Microsoft Excel ready to go. While they shuffle papers around and debate how their home mock drafts differ from the real deal, I'm ready to sort and click between tabs to find my data.

3. I believe past performance is the best indicator of future performance.

I don't need to see teams play or practice to believe a quarterback and a wide receiver have "chemistry", or need to see if a guy has had a good off-season regimen. Instead, the most important data is how well they performed relative to their peers at the position in previous years, according to the rules of the league you are playing.


My 2004 Data Set With 2003 Results
That said, I use the tools that are available to get the data I want, and it all goes into Excel, including:

• A worksheet that shows the previous years' league results, sortable by position, name, team, total points, overall points ranking, and average points per week.
• A worksheet that shows the bye weeks
• A worksheet that shows the most recent injury report, by team
• One or more worksheet with the proposed draft order from ESPN or USA Today

I then create two net new tabs, including:

• A worksheet that will display the team I have drafted.
• A worksheet that tracks the entire league's draft for the season

Once all the data is in there, I'm ready to go to work, as soon as the draft starts. As picks are made by each other team, I quickly highlight those who are off the board in multiple places - on the tab showing last year's statistics, and on the mock draft boards from ESPN and USA Today. At this point, the draft isn't that much different in Excel as it is on paper, but as time progresses, and the all too typical first few rounds get chewed up by running backs, quarterbacks and the occasional wide receiver, my preparedness has an advantage.

If your fantasy football league was online last year, all you usually have to do is go to last season's end of year report, and do a copy/paste into Excel, which will recognize all the columns and set you up for sorting nirvana. If at first you don't succeed... keep trying until you do. Worst case, save the pages as HTML and you can bring them to the draft day on the laptop.


The 2004 Draft, A Down Year for Me
Where others are deciding whether to take a team defense or their third running back, I can go and use Excel's Sort option to its fullest. I can take the highest players available based on their points per game average from the previous season, or do the same to fill a position I need. I can know whether taking a good quarterback will mean all that much relative to the next highly rated option, or if I should keep filling the backfield.


My 2004 Roster, For Example
And the latest rounds are where I make a killing. At this point, especially as most drafts are on Saturday mornings, and guys are joking around about taking players who are injured, or complaining about how the guy just before them snaked Fred Taylor or Torry Holt, I can sneak in and find players that were rated highly last year or by the major sports publications, yet haven't been drafted.

In 2004, my 10th round pick ended up being Willis McGahee of the Bills. In 2005, I got Larry Johnson of the Chiefs in round 12, who ended up being excellent injury protection for Priest Holmes, scoring 17 touchdowns on 1,549 yards rushing. As the rest of the teams use all the allotted time, often accidentally drafting players that have already been taken, my turn comes around every 12th pick, and I look to my Excel sheets for the answer. Yes, they overlooked my secret weapon, and I'll be setting myself up for the win, again.

This year's draft time is 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, and I've made it a little more fun by getting Drew Olanoff of ReadBurner and Strands to be part of the festivities, as well as two friends from work, all of whom are joining the league for the first time. We'll see who wins the battle of Fantasy Football geeks.

Perpetually Rooting for the Underdog

By now, it's no secret, even to the least sports-affiliated of you, that the New York Giants beat the previously-undefeated New England Patriots to claim Super Bowl XLII. Just a week after many were arguing whether the Patriots team was among the best ever in the history of the NFL, it turned out they weren't even dominant enough to beat the Giants in the one game that would have truly made history. Now, instead, the Patriots were just on the downside of one of the bigger upsets in recent memory. And we loved it. As I watched, I loudly clapped my hands and shouted when Eli Manning made his touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left, making the win a near-certainty.

While I'm not really a huge fan of any specific NFL team, having left the stable of the 49ers faithful more than a decade ago, there was no question I was rooting for the Giants tonight, as well as against the Patriots, as much as anything. As a Bay Area fan, I've grown tired of the antics of the Boston teams, and especially their fans, who see it as their God-given right to go out and gather championships. Since 2004 (and earlier), when the Red Sox finally garnered their first World Series trophy in nearly a century, their fans have been among the most vocal and most annoying, rivaling only Yankees fans in their ridiculousness. As their own team's salaries spiral ever higher, they can't be seen as fighting against a Goliath, being a Goliath themselves. And in a rare twist, tonight, I was rooting for a New York team who hadn't been given much chance by the national media to win it all.

Over my life, I've grown accustomed to rooting for the underdog, not only in sports, but in technology, business and even politics. I don't tend to gravitate toward that which is most popular or most purchased because I see others doing it. Instead, I tend to make my own choices, market share be darned. That's why even in the face of intense competition from other vendors, I've made my choices in Apple and TiVo, and am not a big fan of Microsoft. I continue to root hard for my small-market teams, the Oakland A's and the Sacramento Kings. I continue to find flaws in the big companies' offerings and laud the efforts of small start-ups, even when their own offerings have holes. I see the potential in the little guy as they work hard to become the big guy, and hope they remain humble.

And when the little guy I have always rooting for may become the big guy on the block, their newfound power has me sometimes questioning if they've lost that innovative focus, and just what made them great in the first place. Google is slowly making that transition, adding on new focuses, when the ink isn't yet dry on the last product announcement, and they aren't always going to receive the benefit of the doubt from me the way they once did. And Apple, a one-time blip in most markets, is now owning the leadership position in digital entertainment and devices, and should be expected to do the right thing in terms of product prioritization and pricing.

Unfortunately for me, and others like me, teams and companies and technologies are often the underdog for good reason. Sometimes the competition has bigger stars, a bigger cash hoard, and more resources. Sometimes, they have a few years' head-start, or a customer base so strong that its difficult to push for conversion. So, I often find myself disappointed when I see the little guys give up, stay small, or in the world of sports, lose and go home, only to re-open my hopes the following year. But tonight, at least for 24 hours, we're happy that the big beast from Boston was thwarted, and the underdogs went home victorious. If only that always happened.

RSS As a News Engine Eliminates Surprise

With the NFL playoffs in full swing today, and both games partially overlapping with our church schedule, I asked our TiVo HD to step in for us and capture both the Chargers/Colts contest, and that of the Cowboys/Giants. I avoided the radio, didn't look at any sports scores on television, avoided ESPN.com, and didn't look at My Yahoo! or Ballhype, who would each have given away the results.

But I did make a mistake. I checked my Google Reader feeds, and while I knew better than to check the RSS feeds from ESPN.com, excited bloggers who usually cover technology or media exulted in delight when their favorite teams won today.

(Meandering Passage blew it for me in both contests, so don't click either link if you haven't already seen the results...)

In minutes, as I hit the 'J' key, going through each of my items, the surprises were gone.

Now, while I haven't committed the final scores to memory, I am going through the TiVo recordings, knowing the eventual outcomes, and not enjoying the elements of surprise. I don't know just how each team won, or who the stars and goats were. That's left to be seen. But this time, RSS gave it away.

Cal Coughs Up the Axe to Stanford

It often feels like the world of sports was not very kind to us in 2007. The A's slogged their way to a less than .500 record and a lousy 3rd place finish in the AL West. The Sacramento Kings are pathetic (on most nights). (See: When Can I Celebrate Winning Again?)

And even when I bought tickets to the World Series and flew out to Colorado, the Boston Red Sox had to go out and louse things up by sweeping the hometown Rockies.

But none of that compares to the frustration I have with the Cal Bears. After a 5-0 start that saw the team ranked #2 nationally, the Bears' season has been a disaster, with week after week of disgusting loss after pathetic loss. With the amount of talent on the squad, plus what should be a near-elite coach in Jeff Tedford, the team dramatically underperformed down the stretch, culminating in tonight's stomach-turning 20-13 catastrophe on the Farm at Stanford, which saw the team give up the hallowed Axe for the first time in six years.

The loss, which I hate to admit I watched in its entirety, saw the Bears fall to 6-6, and likely has them going home without a bowl bid for the first time since Tedford took the helm. And even if they back in to some ridiculous, unimpressive, bowl, they don't deserve it, because they stink. They were barely fun to watch even when they were winning, and once they started losing, it was all I could do to simply stay loyal.

I don't really feel like recapping the game here. There are definitely other sources for that, although Sports Blogs Nation's "The Band Is Out on the Field" gave up on the team early, not even making an open thread for the Big Game. Suffice it to say that everything that had gone wrong up to this point was repeated in a microcosm for a painful sixty minutes of football. Injuries to key players. Dropped passes. Getting stuffed at the line. A gimpy, underpowered quarterback. Interceptions in the 4th quarter. No defense when we needed it. A painful, late, grasp at hope. And yes, yet another loss.

It's got me thinking I just might not re-up for season tickets next year. Yes, it's that bad.

At Cal Tonight, The Only "W" Stood for Wet

This evening presented the last home game for Cal football of the season, against one of our most hated conference rivals, USC. What should have been one of the most hotly-anticipated games of the season was instead a battle of two lower-ranked Top 25 teams who had better days behind them. Sprinkle in a few sprinkles, and some more... and then some more... and we ended up having a soaking wet evening that wrapped up with Cal doing what it seems to always do in these big games. Losing.

Around 3, my wife and I put on our Cal gear, grabbed our tickets and headed to the car to make our way to Berkeley. It was misty in Sunnyvale, but not sprinkling all that much. The further north we drove, up 880, the more it started to rain, never letting up. As we walked to the game, after grabbing BART at the Ashby Station, our umbrellas were out, and we were debating if we should have donned our ponchos right away.

Getting into the stadium, we saw more than 70,000 fans in all colors of poncho - from the Red and Gold USC fans, to the blue and other colors of Cal fans. I reached into my bag only to realize we had two ponchos, but one white (for my wife) and one orange - a shade too close to red for my own good in a quite hostile crowd. So for the full game, as I jumped up and down and yelled from my seat, the rain poured down, dripping from the bill of my cap. My shoes had turned dark with precipitation, and as I would slap my hands to my saturated jeans, the would spray with water. My Cal jacket, hanging damply at my sides, could be wrung out at the elbows and wrists, not exactly keeping me dry.

But the game went on.

Cal scored first, going up 7-0, before letting the Trojans tie the game up 7-all at the end of the first quarter. A few frustrating drives later, it was 14-10 USC at the half, as the rain continued to fall, and many fans considered whether they should trust their better judgment, giving into the elements and going home. Many did.

And the rains kept coming.

The second half started with USC getting the ball, and driving down the field, stopping short of a touchdown, but putting 3 more points on the board, taking a 17-10 lead. Cal struck back with a touchdown of their own, making it 17-all to end the 3rd quarter.

But we were already gone.

While I was willing to play the part of a human puddle, my clothes stuck to my body and the slight wind keeping me all too cool while cheering on the Bears, the elements proved to be too much for my wife. Her jacket, covered by a poncho, with a sweatshirt and blanket besides couldn't overcome Mother Nature's assault, and we had already made our way back down to the BART station to return home. After two full years of A's season tickets, and at four of Cal football games, we had finally found one that saw us leave well before the game's conclusion.

But the game went on.

As we drove down 880 South, we hit the dashboard, frustrated, as we listened to USC's march down the field to gain the lead 24-17. We gnashed our teeth as Cal looked to come back, only to throw another interception, effectively giving up the game. We rolled our eyes as time expired, and the Bears were handed their 4th loss in 5 games, sending the rest of the valiant fans who had stayed behind home with feelings of frustration and emptiness, as another Saturday came and went without the Bears fulfilling their potential.

For our family, we're now at a crossroads. The A's season long behind us, lingering only as memory, the Cal home schedule complete, we're done for the year, barring a special one-off to see the Kings in Sacramento, the Sharks in San Jose, or maybe another 49ers game. But for now, we're on hold. We can put our ballcaps away, dry our clothes, and hope 2008 brings better news. 2007 left us with the occasional sparks of excitement, but far too much loss and frustration.

The rain didn't help.

When Can I Celebrate Winning Again?

In my youth, my favorite sports teams seemingly challenged every year. The 49ers won Super Bowl after Super Bowl. The Oakland A's were in the World Series from 1988 to 1990, taking the title in 1989. Before I liked the Sacramento Kings, I liked the LA Lakers, and saw Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar take home their share of championships. But for nearly two decades, as fans from across the country have celebrated their teams, at least for one season, I'm growing fatigued of seeing my hopes for a pennant - in any sport - fade early.

Yesterday, Cal, once expected to challenge for a BCS berth, got dumped on by the UCLA Bruins in Los Angeles, going down to their second straight defeat after a season opening run to the #2 ranking in all the country. Now, the team will be lucky just to find its way to the unrewarding and poorly named Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

This disaster comes only months after the Oakland A's played their way into near last place in the AL West, avoiding the playoffs, which itself was preceded by a season-long funk by the Sacramento Kings. While the Kings' season is on the verge of opening up, I don't harbor any misguided belief that the team's fortunes will change.

As for the 49ers? First of all, as I've made clear before, I don't really care enough for their wins or losses to make much difference. But the truth is, they still stink. I came home from church this afternoon to see them completing yet another weak showing, as they lost 33-15 to the New York Giants.

A friend of mine says he knows not to jump on to a bandwagon unless he's absolutely certain they will win. I can't do that. I can cheer for the Rockies' improbable run to the World Series, but it's a hollow cheer. I can't root for the Cal Bears to find a way to finish with less than 4 losses. I had higher expectations. And what am I supposed to ask of the A's next year? A record above .500? How can I accept that as a real goal?

I'm not switching the teams I root for just because it's become so inconvenient to see them lose and lose after teasing me into thinking they had a chance. But I would like to be positively surprised for a change. Soon.

Inexplicably. Inexcusably. Ineptly. Sigh...

The Associated Press recap of today's 31-28 loss for Cal against Oregon State carried a nice keyword: "Inexplicably", as in "With his receivers covered, Riley inexplicably tried to scramble for the score."

Among 64,000 fans this evening, we saw Cal charge back in the final minutes to give us hope for today's game after a full regulation of hope mixed with frustration, only to have it "inexplicably" torn away from us, as a freshman backup quarterback, starting his first NCAA game, snuffed out our chances for a national title in one simple misstep.

As I noted this morning, I feared Cal was in for a surprise. They'd ridden high, undefeated so far, to the #2 ranking in all the land. But I felt the emperor had no clothes. As elsewhere, number 1 LSU lost, the chance was there for the Bears to back into the #1 ranking, if they could just hold on and win at home against the Beavers. But they couldn't do it. They were trailing in the first quarter. They led by one point at the half, and fell behind quickly, again, in the 3rd quarter. After a brief 21-20 lead, they watched Oregon State put on 11 points, taking a 31-21 lead, helped along by two critical Cal fumbles, an interception, and a successful goal-line stand by the Beaver defense, which Cal could not match.

As time ran down on the clock, Cal charged back, making it 31-28 with less than three minutes to go. And we got the ball back! At our own 5 yard line, "The Drive" started, as redshirt freshman QB Kevin Riley powered the Bears down the field with the final minutes turning to the final seconds. The end zone was in sight, and if unsuccessful, we could always tack on an easy field goal to send the game to overtime. Right? Wrong. Riley "inexplicably" tried to run for it himself and was stopped well short, when an incomplete pass would have saved the game.

In the space of an afternoon, a story was lost. The hopes of the tens of thousands of us at Memorial Stadium, no doubt compounded by the hundreds of thousands of Cal fans outside the stadium, for the team to reach the #1 position in the country for the first time since our grandparents were roaming the campus, were dashed, "inexplicably", by a bonehead scramble from a poor kid who will likely be thinking of his alternatives for decades to come.

Now, instead of an undefeated team possibly in the BCS hunt for a national title, Cal is one of many 1-loss teams, and falls back into the Pac-10 race, headed for a showdown with USC in early November. While we will, for sure, be cheering our butts off for that game, we've "inexplicably" been forced to lower our hopes and face reality. This wasn't the year.

#2 Cal Is Hours Away From Kickoff

Cal, fresh off a bye week, and sporting a lofty #2 national ranking, is all set to take on the Oregon State Beavers this afternoon at 4 p.m. at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. The last time we saw the Bears, they had squeaked out a challenging victory against the Oregon Ducks, catapulting their #6 poll position to where they are today. Since then, many an upset has befallen the college football leaderboard, including an utter collapse by USC against Stanford. Now, the nation's eyes are on Cal, and whether their so-far undefeated season will take them to a national championship berth, or if it will become unraveled on the way.

Being an "Old Blue" Cal alum, we keep expecting this dream to come crashing down at any moment. I know Cal is a great football team. It has excellent speed, and some well-known individuals, starting with DeSean Jackson, supported by Justin Forsett, Nate Longshore and a host of leaders on defense. I've seen them consistently win. But just as I feared Cal was overrated at the #6 spot, my anxiety is increased as they've continued their ascent. When I see the play to play struggles or a soft quarter, it's all I can do but hold my head in my hands and hope that outside of the stadium, nobody else sees what I see - a spotty defense and an offense with big playmakers but inexact consistency.

Couple in my pessimism with news that Cal quarterback Longshore is still hobbling after an ankle injury at Oregon, meaning the backup quarterback might see play today, and my stomach starts to turn. Just when we were taking the world by storm, too!

The Beavers are not to be underestimated. In the last few years as a season ticket holder, they have surprised me with their offense, and they've taken some games from the Bears where they shouldn't have. They're no longer the Pac-10 basement dwellers of years gone by, but instead a formidable opponent not to be taken lightly. I hope Cal is ready, and doesn't expect to get a "W" simply because of the logos on their jerseys and what it says in the paper. After all, the game always starts out tied, 0-0.

In a few hours, we'll be in Berkeley, clad in the blue and gold, yelling our lungs out for our Cal Bears to put the pounding on the Beavers and keep progressing up that evolutionary ladder. We'll hope for the best, challenge on every play, and try to keep that little voice in our head quiet for just one more week.

You can follow along on Excuse Me For My Voice or The Band Is Out on the Field. Game time is 4 p.m.

Weak 49ers Offense Doesn't Spoil My 1st NFL Game

Somehow, I managed to make it to the old age of 30 before ever going to an NFL game. Today, I crossed that barrier, taking in the San Francisco 49ers' 9-7 loss to the Baltimore Ravens (Recap), in what was likely the best possible weather for a sunny Bay Area afternoon game at Monster Park.

I grew up a 49ers fan in elementary and junior high school, seeing San Francisco march to Super Bowl after Super Bowl in the 1980s to 1990s on the backs of legendary players like Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, John Taylor, and others. But as the team fell apart following Young's retirement, and my focuses were more in line with fantasy football individuals, rather than the teams they played on, I stopped caring - even as some part of me knew I was still a 49ers fan somewhere.

While I've attended more than 100 A's games, a few dozen Cal games, and a smattering of San Jose Sharks, San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings games over the years, I'd never taken the trek to old Candlestick Park to see the 49ers play - likely a combination of the fact they play on Sunday, a suspected high price, and nobody else pushing to go. Today, that changed as some colleagues from the office offered up the chance for me to see the 49ers play, in their seats, which they gained by benefit of 4 season tickets. Donning the unfamiliar red and gold, we rooted for the 49ers to take over the game early, and put some points on the board, but they didn't do much at all on offense for just about the entire game.

In fact, the game turned out to be a defensive battle, as both teams put up goose eggs in the first quarter, and the 49ers went to half time trailing 6-0, on a pair of Ravens' field goals. While we yelled at the 49ers to take some chances and throw the ball downfield, they were a complete vacuum on offense, choosing instead to run the ball straight ahead for no gain. In fact, the MVP of the team's offense was likely the punter, who kicked 7 times for more than 300 yards, including three balls that were downed behind the 20 yard line.

After falling behind 9-0 in the 3rd quarter, the 49ers posted their only score and only real excitement of the game on the back of two passes from backup QB Trent Dilfer, making the game 9-7 to enter the final frame. 15 minutes and one missed field goal later, the team was all done, and so were we.

Was the visit a disaster just because the 49ers lost? No. Was it boring because they didn't score much? No - although I wouldn't have minded a 34-31 shootout, to be honest. Attending today's game with good friends was a lot of fun, and as annoyed as I was as to the outcome of the game, it's much more likely now that I'll be paying more attention to the 49ers, and I just might be willing to once again admit to being a fan.