The bad news is I’m way behind on linking to my articles this season. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything very geeky. The good news is I’ve developed a new system that will help you set your lineup.

This is like features you’ll find on large league hosts that show you who other people are starting, but this goes a few steps further. For starters, I know these players, and their reputation, among other things, is built into the ranking — Big improvement over “Who Joe Yahoo! Office Leaguer is starting.” It also takes a much deeper look than ridiculous things like “98% of LT owners are starting him.”  You can also click on a name and see who people are putting ahead or behind the player.

I’m working on getting this hosted back at FantasySharks.com in one form or another. Meanwhile, check it out, and let me know what you think!

http://www.challengeeveryplay.com/ffl/mfl/wsas.php

This was the last week for the Notable Numbers segment, as I decided to switch gears and concentrate on analysis. Specifically, Who Sharks are Starting.

In the first of a pretty much defunct commentary series, a look at some of the more interesting numbers for the week.

What kind of sportswriter would I be if I didn’t throw out the occasional random list of snarky predictions?

No, of course it’s not real! That’s besides the point. This was really just an excuse for a whirlwind trip through Superbowl history. Enjoy!

This is what you get if you look at the Census data the right way. If you want to average out Americans another way, take what makes about half the country boys, then take what makes about half the country girls, and divide by two. However interesting a mental image this might make, this is not a helpful statistic (if you happen to be one of these kind of “Average Americans” please stop reading this article and call your nearest day time talk show host immediately).

Here in The Lab we’re going to take football data and commonly held ideas in fantasy football, tie them up, strap them down, and wring them into submission. We’ll subject them to experiments until they confess to numerical lies like this one that help you lose, and reveal meaningful secrets that just might help you win. More importantly, we’ll show how to figure out which is which – and this is how we begin!