ProfessorBainbridge.com

How many Super Bowl wins = Eli's Ticket to Canton?

NFL Network reports that former Giants QB Phil "Simms told NFL Network on Wednesday the legacies of Giants coach Tom Coughlin and QB Eli Manning will land them in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — if they win Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday."

But why? Jim Plunkett won two SBs and he didn't make the Hall. Tom Flores won two Super Bowls as a head coach and he didn't make the Hall. (Of course, my friends who are Raiders fans will claim that there's an anti-Oakland bias.) Joe Theisman and Craig Morton each made it to two SBs (albeit with only one win between them) and neither of them made it to the Hall.

Until this season, Eli's stats were pretty average for a starting QB. Damingly, he's thrown the most INTs of any QB in the years since he entered the league. He's got no MVP trophies and only 2 Pro Bowls. 

Assuming they all stay healthy, Eli will be coming up for Hall consideraton in a period in which a lot of amazing QBs will be eligible. From Peyton and Brady at the older end of the spectrum to Rodgers and Roethlisberger at the younger, with guys like Drew Brees in the middle, there will be a lot of QBs with much gaudier stats (not to mention more charisma and zing) competing for Hall slots.

The only strong argument I see for Eli is that, assuming he gets his second win this weekend, he will be the only QB to have twice beaten Brady and Belichick--the greatest coach/QB combination of my time watching pro football--in the Super Bowl. (Yes, I'd put Brady/Belichick ahead of Montana/Walsh, but I can see why you might disagree.)

But I still think Eli will need to flesh out his resume with a third SB win or a few 5000 yards/MVP seasons to make it to the Hall.

Are the Green Bay Packers Really the Worst Stock in America?

The WSJ's Laura Saunders ponders the titular question in a most amusing way. 

The stock offering also has corporate governance experts at odds. “What’s the point of being a shareholder if you can’t act like one? If the directors took the money and went to Aruba, shareholders couldn’t sue,” says Joshua Fershee, a Detroit Lions fan and a professor at the University of North Dakota’s law school.

UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge, who switched allegiance to the Packers from the Washington Redskins and now owns a share of stock, disagrees. “These shareholders don’t have any rights,”  he says, and “this is a great example of letting management do its thing without investors kibitzing from the sidelines.”

Indeed, one could argue that the Packers exemplify director primacy.

 

Fantasy Football Roundup

So I finished in second place in the PB.com rotisserie league. I was well rewarded for taking MJD high. Drafting Rob Gronkowski in the late rounds turned out to be a strike of genius (okay, mostly luck). A mid-season trade for Matthew Stafford helped too. Just not quite enough firepower to make up the gap with the league leader.

I finished third in the PB.com H2H league. I got hammered by QB injuries towards the end of the season and wound up starting (Gawd help me) Matt Sanchez. Ray Rice deserved his first round selection. Drafting Jimmy Graham late was another stoke of genius (okay, mainly luck). If Miles Austin and Matt Schaub had been healthy all season and I had had a better RBs than DeAngelo Williams, I think I could have won this thing. Oh well.

Kudos, BTW, to Drew C who won both the OB.com leagues this year -- a first.

As for my teams in Charles' leagues, I don't want to talk about it.

Thoughts:

1. In 2012, we end the H2H fantasy season in Week 16. These week 17 games are just too unpredictable. Drew's 7-7 team beat Charles' 10-4 team mainly because Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson went nuts against a Packers defense missing Charles Woodson and Clay Matthews.
2. Aaron Rodgers is fantasy fold in roto leagues. I won the PB.com rotisserie league last year behind him (of course, having drafted Arian Foster in the 6th round helped). Drew C won the league this year behind Rodgers. 
3. Drafting an injury-prone Javid Best as my RB2 in two leagues was a very bad idea.
4. Cam Newton is going to be what we thought Mike Vick was going to be. Only better and for much longer. He's a fantasy superstar in the making.
5. Desean Jackson was my biggest bust of the year. Considering how high I drafted him, I got woeful production.
6. Ditto Mike Vick. Having both of them on the same team was a very bad idea.
7. Cam Newton and Tim Tebow were great waiver wire pickups, even if they were picked up on my Charles' league teams that otherwise sucked. Newton will be on my radar for QB1 next year. Not convinced Tebow will be starting in 2012.
8. I loved it when David Akers tossed for a TD in week 17. It didn't change any of my results, but I love it when you get that little "extra points" asterisk on your Yahoo score sheet.
9. Having Vernon Davis as my TE on the same team that had Vick and Jasckson was one more reason that team sucked.
10. It's going to be a long, dull 8 months before the next season starts.

I'm now an official Green Bay Packers stockholder

My share of stock in the Green Bay Packers has arrived. I now "own" (if you can call it that) a small slice of NFL history. So goodbye Washington Redskins, the team of my youth and middle age, and good luck to you. God knows you're going to need it as long as Dan Snyder owns you.

And hello Packers, the team of my old age.

Tebow Time

As a NFL fan for over 40 years, I can't remember a story that's been as much fun as Tim Tebow's winning streak. His play is so ugly so much of the time ... until it's Tebow Time. Check out how Steve Mariucci breaks it down.

Owning the Green Bay Packers

My first weekend as a newly minted Green Bay Packers stockholder and fan went well. A 46-16 victory over the Oakland Raiders, a team I've never liked, was a great way to start this new era in sports fandom. Meanwhile, my former favorite team -- the Washington Redskins -- continued their Dan Snyder/Mike Shanahan slide into futility, despite putting up a spirited battle with the New England Patriots. And, the Dallas Cowboys lost. Since my second favorite team is still whoever's playing the Cowboys, my top two teams won this weekend.

Turning to a more serious matter of law, what exactly is it that I own as a Packers' shareholder. Specifically, do I own a "security" as defined in the federal securities laws?

Self-described "business law and NFL" geek Joshua Fershee reviews the issues, but doesn't reach a firm conclusion. Instead, the post reminds me of the sort of advice that made Harry Truman famously wish for a one handed economist. Unfortunately, clients want yes or no answers. As a parter for whom I worked when I was in practice once told me, as he tossed a draft letter back at me for more work, "a legal opinion should at least seem to opine something." (Tip for young lawyers: A wonderful skill to develop is the ability to write an opinion letter that seems to opine something, but really doesn't. It will make you indispensable.)

So I'm sending this memo back to young Fershee with a request; namely, "if you had to write a cold comfort letter, which side of the issue would you come down on?"

An academic performance-weighted reordering of the BCS

CE Petit offers up an analysis of the college football BCS ranking in which he reorders it according to a combined football-academic performance scale:

I'll weight the BS-CACA equally between "football performance" and "academic performance," which in turn is equally weighted between the NCAA's most-recent academic progress report for the football team and the university's median freshman standardized-test score.

Interestingly LSU remains # 1, while Stanford jumps to # 2. (I was going to make a crack here about Virginia Tech, but this week even my heart goes out to the folks in Blacksburg.) Go check out the whole list.

I bought myself a birthday present and switched my allegiance

When I read an article in today's WSJ on the Green Bay Packer's stock sale, I knew what I wanted for my upcoming birthday (it's next Sunday, so you've still got 3 shopping days if you hurry):

As stock investments go, the Green Bay Packers' latest $62.5 million offering isn't very good. It pays no dividends, can only be transferred to family and can't appreciate in value. ...

Pat Duffey, a 25-year-old Wauwatosa, Wis., resident, acknowledged the conditions of the sale indicated "you're just getting a piece of paper, not much more than that," but said it was worth it because "I've grown up being a fan of the Packers and loved them all my life." ...

Boulder, Colo., resident Mike O'Connor, a vice president at apparel company Pearl Izumi, said he plans to purchase a share for his son. "It represents Green Bay and the Packers and all the great things that go along with that."

And the financial benefits? "It's all sentimental value to me," he said.

So I am now the proud owner of 1 share of stock in Green Bay Packers, Inc., suitable for framing.

As a corporate law professor, I naturally dote on stock certificates, so it'll be a nice piece of art for my office.

As a football fan, I now have a justification for rethinking my loyalties. As regular readers know, I've been a fan of the Washington Redskins ever since I first became aware of professional football as a spectator sport (circa 1970-ish). I reveled in the glory years of the first Joe Gibbs coaching stint, but have paid the price of unending misery during the Little Danny Snyder years. No fair wather fan, moi.

But Dan Snyder's been testing my patience for years and I'm about at the point where I think I can switch allegiances without being accused of being a turncoat.

What better time to become a Green Bay Packers fan than this year? And what better excuse for doing so than being a stockholder?

Go Pack!

Monday Night Football Thoughts

It's been a while since I did a football post, so here goes:

1. The Unseen Academicals are 9-3 in the PB.com H2H fantasy football league, are in first place in their division, have clinched a playoff spot, and are in good shape to add a 10th win by the end of the night. Da Commish is in second place in the PB.com roto league, but continues to come on strong and is slowly closing the gap with the Roswell Oilers. The Cowboys Drool are 5-7 and thus in a three way tie for fourth place in the lamentably named Cowboys Rule H2H. Unfortunately, all three of us are almost certain locks to win this week, which means the tie for the final playoff spot remains unbroken. As for the LA Prawfs, they remain mired in seventh place in their rotisserie league. So I'm having a pretty decent but not stellar season.
2. I'm now convinced Tim Tebow has a viable future as an NFL starting quarterback. But what matters is what John Elway and, I suppose, John Fox think. It's hard to read what Elway says about Tebow and conclude that Elway is prepared to commit beyond the season to Tebow. In an ideal world, Elway would trade Tebow to a team that actually wants him and is prepared to utilize his skill set.
3. At this point, Cam Newton would get my vote for Offensive Rookie of the Year.
4. At this point, Aaron Rodgers would get my vote for Offensive Player of the Year.
5. Few things have made me happier than watching the Philadelphia Eagles flutter back to earth tis season.
6. I am increasingly doubtful that my beloved Washington Redskins will make the playoffs in what's left of my lifetime.
7. I hate Dan Snyder and all his works.
8. I feel really sorry for the Houston Texans. It's like watching an edifice crumble.
9. DirecTV's Sunday Ticket is probably the greatest invention since the internal combustion engine.
10. My fearless prediction: The Green Bay Packers will go undefeated and win the Super Bowl.

"The Performance of Football Club Managers: Skill or Luck?"

The Jacksonville Jaguar's firing of head coach Jack del Rio raises two questions: (1) why now? and (2) how did he manage to last so long? An interesting new paper examines manager turnover in English "football" (i.e., soccer) teams:

This paper evaluates the extent to which the performance of English Premier League football club managers can be attributed to skill or luck when measured separately from the characteristics of the team. We first use a specification that models managerial skill as a fixed effect and we examine the relationship between the number of points earned in league matches and the club’s wage bill, transfer spending, and the extent to which they were hit by absent players through injuries, suspensions or unavailability. We next implement a bootstrapping approach to generate a simulated distribution of average points that could have taken place after the impact of the manager has been removed. The findings suggest that there are a considerable number of highly skilled managers but also several who perform below expectations. The paper proceeds to illustrate how the approach adopted could be used to determine the optimal time for a club to part company with its manager. We are able to identify in advance several managers who the analysis suggests could have been fired earlier and others whose sackings were hard to justify based on their performances.

Citation: Bell, Adrian R., Brooks, Chris and Markham, Tom, The Performance of Football Club Managers: Skill or Luck? (November 21, 2011). ICMA Centre Discussion Paper in Finance No. DP2011-24. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1962574

If trannsferable to the NNFL setting, it suggests a Moneyball approach to hiring and firing coaches.

The Business Judgment Rule and Falcon's HC Smith's Decision to Go for It

You know you're a true corporate law geek when things like Atlanta Falcon Head Coach Mike Smith's decision to go for it on 4th and inches against the New Orleans Saints reminds you of the business judgment rule. So let me introduce you to Joshua Fershee, corporate law geek extraordinary, and recommend his post on how the two are related.

Pro Bowl Voting

The NFL's Pro Bowl is pretty much of a joke, of course, but there are a couple of things they could do to help. First, why have they already started letting people vote? There's 8 weeks of football left to play. Plenty of time for guys in a slump to break out, for guys having career years to regress to the mean, and especially for guys to suffer season-ending injuries. Voting should start week 16 at the earliest.

Second, why let us fans vote? (I know, to drum up interest.) Most people will have a strong homer bias, which skews the results in favor of guys on the most popular teams.

Fantasy update

For the first time in weeks, both of my H2H fantasy football teams won their match ups. The Unseen Academicals are now 8-1 and sit atop their division of the PB.com H2H league. The Cowboys Drool have clawed their way back to 4-5 and are tied for fifth at 4-5 in the Cowboys Rule H2H league (preposterous name). Three teams are tied for second at 5-4. I need to catch at least one of them to make the 4 team playoff. Unfortunately, next week I'm up against the 7-2 first place squad.

Da Commish remains mired in 4th place in the PB.com roto league, while the LA Prawfs continue their descent to the cellar in Tabb's toto league.

Fantasy Football Update # 2: The Unseen Academicals

In contrast to the woeful LA Prawfs, the Unseen Academicals are 2-0 and tied for first place in the PB.com H2H PPR league.

Week One:

Week two went even better:

Ray Rice and Jahvid Best turned out to be great choices, especially given all the PPR points they've racked up. Jimmy Graham is playing as well as I had hoped with room to improve.

DeAngelo Williams has been a major disappointment and has gone to the bench until he proves he's still at least a decent flex starter.

Going forward, I'm worried about Matt Schaub. I picked up Ryan Fitzpatrick off the waiver wire. Fitz has outscored Schaub by about 30 points in the first two weeks. So do I start him in week 3? I don't like either matchup. This may end up being a coin toss Sunday AM.

Looking specifically at week 3, do I start Julio Jones or David Nelson if Miles Austin can't play? Plus, do either of them (or Jared Cook) replace Robert Meachem at the flex? I think the answers are Jones at WR (I like his matchup better) and Meachem at the flex.

I continue to play DSTs based on matchups. I dropped Houston and added SF this week, because the Niners DST should do well against Cincinnati.

Fantasy Football Update # 1: The LA Prawfs

It's two weeks into the season and it's time for an update on my fantasy football season for the benefit of the two or three of you following along at home. Let's start at the bottom with the woeful LA Prawfs. You'll recall that they're my team in CT's 10 team non-PPR rotisserie league. In the first two weeks, my starters have totaled 200 points, a whopping 102 points behind the leader, which is good (so to speak) for just 8th place.

 

Position	Drafted	Current Roster
QB	Ben Roethlisberger	Ben Roethlisberger
WR1	DeSean Jackson	DeSean Jackson
WR2	Brandon Marshall	Brandon Marshall
WR3	Santonio Holmes	Santonio Holmes
RB1	Jamaal Charles	LeSean McCoy
RB2	LeSean McCoy	Ryan Mathews
RB3	Ryan Mathews	Ben Tate
TE	Vernon Davis	Vernon Davis
K	Matt Bryant	Adam Vinatieri
DST	New England	New England
BN-QB	Matt Cassel	Cam Newton
BN-RB	Reggie Bush	Reggie Bush
BN-RB	Ben Tate	Thomas Jones
BN-RB	Kendall Hunter	Roy Helu
BN-WR	Steve Smith (Car)	Robert Meachem
BN-WR/TE	Marcedes Lewis	Eric Decker

Losing my first round choice Jamaal Charles for the season early in Week 2 was devastating. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only low scorer that week: DeSean Jackson, Reggie Bush, and Vernon Davis all started and racked up fewer than 3 points. Meanwhile, I left a ton of points on the bench by not starting Mathews (18.6) and Ben Tate (13.5). On top of which, Cam Newton kicked butt scoring 29.6 points on the bench, while starter Ben Roethlisberger turned in just 16.7 points.

My start/sit decisions weren't much better in Week 1, as I left Bush (15.4) and Tate (15.6) on the bench.

Going forward, I need Vernon Davis to start performing at an elite TE level. I drafted Ben Tate as trade bait, but now I'm starting him until Arian Foster is clearly healthy (and hoping Foster proves a slow healer).

Looking specifically at week 3, the pressing questions are (1) choosing between Roethlisberger and Newton. They're playing Indy and Jax, respectively, so both could be in for big games. I'm leaning Newton, expecting that if I do so this will be the week he plays like a rookie.

(2) Should I start Eric Decker over, say, Santonio Holmes?

(3) Trying to find a backup TE. Continuing to monitor the waiver wire.

(4) Wondering whether I'm so far behind that I'm just going through the motions. This is, of course, the drawback of a rotisserie league. It's easy to fall so far behind early that righting the ship by making good waiver wire decisions and better start/sit decisions proves impossible.