The 2022 London Sillynannies

Like millions of people around the country and even around the world, I participate in fantasy football.  It adds a certain level of interest when I watch NFL games.  Although my primary NFL rooting interest is for the Indianapolis Colts, playing fantasy football has gotten me to watch games between teams that I would otherwise not care about as I root for individual players from those games.  Plus, it’s a fun competition that allows me to pretend that I own, operate, and coach my own football team.  A few years ago, I joined a fantasy football league (appropriately named “Fantasy Football League”) including a few friends, with my team called the London Sillynannies.  I wanted to take some time here to mention our league and my exploits regarding the recently completed 2022 Sillynannies season.

NCAA Conference Realignment Proposal

For those of you who follow the NCAA, you have probably heard the recent news that USC and UCLA will be joining the Big Ten conference in 2024.  This means that the Big Ten will soon have 16 teams (thus making a mockery of its name) while its member schools stretch from New Jersey all the way to California (thus making a mockery of its geography).  This is only the latest development in a system that already didn’t make sense.  The Big Ten, a conference initially made up of ten schools in the Midwest, already had 14 teams from New Jersey to Nebraska before this announcement.  So, while the current NCAA conference alignments already didn’t make sense, this recent USC/UCLA news has now inspired me to fix things.

This is just the latest example of geographic quirks within the NCAA.  Other conferences have similar oddities, such as West Virginia belonging to the 10-team Big 12 (yes, the Big 12 has 10 teams), despite being nowhere near any of the other nine schools located between Iowa and Texas.  Or Louisville belonging to the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), despite not being close to the Atlantic Ocean.  And don’t get me started on the Pioneer League, the football conference in which Butler plays San Diego, Stetson (FL), and Marist (NY).  I think whoever came up with that conference either did so out of spite or failed geography in school.

I’m sure the reason some of the big schools are switching to conferences outside their own region somehow comes down to money, although I don’t know all the particulars as to why. However, regardless of all the nuances of it, I want conferences to make geographic sense.  Fortunately, I have just been appointed the new Supreme Emperor of the NCAA and have been given full authority to make any changes I want.  As such, I decided to realign the conferences in a way that actually makes sense.  With that in mind, I would like to announce the following NCAA conference realignments, effective immediately.

*I may not have actually been appointed Supreme Emperor of the NCAA, and may not currently have the authority to implement these changes.  But, for the purposes of this blog, let’s just pretend for a few minutes that I can do this.

2021 NFL Season Predictions: Results

Back in September, shortly before the start of this past NFL season, I posted my predictions for how well my favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, would do this year.  This included my predictions for the result of every single game they would play during the season.  In addition, I also made predictions on how every NFL team would do this year.  This included my picks for every team’s overall record, which teams would make the playoffs, who would play in the Super Bowl, and who would win it.  You can find these predictions here.  At that time, I decided that no matter how accurate (or inaccurate) this turned out to be, I would most likely re-visit my picks once the season was over and see how they compared to the actual results.  At least as long as my picks weren’t way off.  Since the Super Bowl was this past week and the 2021 NFL season is now officially over, and since my pre-season predictions don’t make me look like a total moron, let’s go ahead and re-visit my picks that I made back on September 4^th and see how I did.

2021 NFL Season Preview

In my previous blog post, I provided a recap of my baseball vacation in July, in which I drove around the Midwest and went to seven Major League Baseball games in one week.  However, that was six weeks ago, and it might be time to post some new content on here.  As we transition into September and with football season now upon us, I will shift the sports topic from baseball to football.

With the NFL season only one week away, I thought I would take this opportunity to make some predictions for the upcoming season.  As an Indianapolis Colts fan, some of this post will be specific to the Colts.  I will provide my outlook for the upcoming Colts season, including a recap of my visit to one of their training camp practices last month.  I will also take some time to make some overall league-wide predictions for the 2021 NFL season.

2020 NFL Season Proposal

As a sports fan, I have missed the enjoyment of following my favorite sports, teams, and players, as well as the entertainment that they provide through competition.  Although it was interesting to watch World Series games from the 1990s on FOX for a while, I was looking forward to the day when real sports that I actually care about (not golf) could start back up.  I have been watching to see how the professional leagues of my three favorite sports – basketball, baseball, and football – would handle the respective opening (or re-opening) of their seasons during the same approximate time frame.

With Major League Baseball’s recent coronavirus outbreak among the Miami Marlins only three days into their season, and with the St. Louis Cardinals now also experiencing positive tests, I’m concerned not only that MLB will have to shut down their season very soon, but that the National Football League (NFL) will not be able to play their season either.  While it might be too late for baseball, I’ve decided to focus on football for this post.  I would like to make the following proposal to the NFL, which, if they actually read and consider this, could save football this year.