Okay, Peyton Manning is the MVP through eight weeks (even though we’re still in week eight). Glad we cleared that up. But for my New York Times article this week, I’m going to naming some mid-season awards. And so I’m requesting feedback from you guys, as to both whom you would select for each award and any other categories you might consider creating. For now, I’ve got:

Most Valuable Player:

Offensive Player of the First Half (non-QB edition):

Defensive Player of the First Half:

Best Offensive Coordinator:

Best Defensive Coordinator:

Best Head Coach:

Breakout Player:

Offensive Rookie:

Defensive Rookie:

Comeback Player:

I’m also going to do a “worst of the year” awards section for each of these categories, probably to post on Tuesday (tomorrow we have a SUPER exciting guest post). If you want to throw in your nominees for those categories, you can do that here, too.

College football SRS ratings will come out later today.

Advanced NFL Stats has rolled out a podcast this year, and host Dave Collins invited me on the show this week. You can hear me ramble for 35 minutes here, where we discuss two point conversions, game scripts, and gush about Peyton Manning. Brian Burke has had a great site for years, but Dave is now bringing yet another way to learn about Advanced NFL Stats — you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Today’s another fun day for all of us at Football Perspective. I’m fortunate to have a smart community of football fans who like to stop by every day. I’m also not the only one to notice that, as a lot advertisers have reached out to me over the last several months because of you guys.

I’m not a fan of most advertising, so I’ve always turned them down. I don’t want you guys to be annoyed when you come here, because I don’t like being annoyed when I’m on somebody else’s site. But after speaking with the folks at FanDuel, we were able to set up something that I think you guys will really enjoy.

FanDuel is fantasy football with a twist: you compete for real money by selecting any player you want each week under a salary cap format. Each player has a price, so the goal is to figure out who are the undervalued players. Instead of drafting a team for a season, you draft a team for a week, as frequently or infrequently as you like (i.e., you can enter every week, or play in week 1, week 3, and then every week the rest of the year starting in week 10 — and not be behind the curve). You can compete in games for as little as $1 or as much as $535 per game. Once you play around with the site, you’ll see all the different options: head-to-head games, 50/50 games, 3-man, 5-man, 10-man, 20-man, or big tournament games.

That’s cool, but what’s really cool is that FanDuel likes you guys. This is a big company — this NFL season, they’ve said that they’ll be paying out over $90 million to their players — but they’ve kept their eyes on us, too. So FanDuel is offering a special 50% deposit bonus to Football Perspective readers. Click here to sign up by clicking the orange “Play Now” button, and the promo code PERSPECTIVE will be entered for you.

But even if you don’t want to spend any money, there’s another cool offer on the table: FanDuel has a free game with a $1500 prize pool for all of us to play on opening weekend. I’ll be in the field competing as ChasePerspective.

You can click here to pick your team for the free game. When you’re finished, click Enter on the bottom of the page. If you didn’t sign up before building your team, you’ll be directed to register a FanDuel account. When you sign up, be sure to type the promo code PERSPECTIVE and your team will be entered into the league. You can edit your team until the first game starts, and then watch the live scoring on FanDuel during the games to track how your team performs against the rest of the field.

Now, the fun stuff: whom should you select? Here are my thoughts:

We have to work within the confines of a $60,000 salary cap and have to fill nine positions: a QB, two RBs, three WRs, a TE, a K, and a D. That’s $6,666 per position, a good baseline to keep in mind. Normally, I’d just go ultra cheap at kicker and defense, but FanDuel doesn’t make things so simple.

At kicker, Phil Dawson (he’s now in San Francisco) and Stephen Gostkowski are the two most expensive kickers at $5400, while just about every other kicker is $5,000. I want a kicker who plays for a team that should be in a close game but will also have trouble getting into the end zone. At a cost of $5K, Robbie Gould fills that description, as the Bears host the Bengals. Chicago will be breaking in a new offense and is up against a tough defense — that could be a three field goal game for Gould.

On defense, it’s all about matchups and home field. The Colts are home against the Raiders, and while Chuck Pagano’s defense was terrible last year, hosting Oakland and Matt Flynn seems like a good matchup. Indianapolis only costs five grand, which leaves me with $50K for the other seven spots, or $7,143 per player.

My next thought is to first find an undervalued player at quarterback and tight end before looking at the backs and receivers. At QB… actually, let’s take a quick break here and review the scoring system. It’s fairly typical — one point per 25 yards passing, 4 points per passing touchdown, 1 point per 10 yards rushing/receiving, and 0.5 points per reception. Some fantasy leagues give 6 points per passing touchdown and one point per 20 yards passing. Those leagues are more passer-friendly; this sort of system is more favorable to running quarterbacks.

How can you not pick this guy?

I am pretty bullish on Michael Vick as a fantasy player, at least unless or until he gets benched or hurt. But for one week, the risk is low, and I could easily see him rushing for 50 yards and a touchdown in week one. At $8,100, he’s the 12th-most expensive quarterback, so it’s not like he’s an outright steal. But I think that’s good value, so I’m taking him.

At tight end, I think a lot of people will take New England rookie Zach Sudfeld because he only costs $4500. In large leagues, I think it’s smart to zig when everyone zags: you don’t win your March Madness bracket by doing what everyone else does. The way to win is to have a unique lineup and cross your fingers, not to have a common lineup, cross your fingers, and then hope you’re the best of that group. Still, at $4500, I can’t pass up on the player who may well be Tom Brady’s #2 target in week one against a bad Buffalo defense.

This leaves me with $37,400 for two running backs and three wide receivers, or $7,480 per position. I have avoided it so far, but the Atlanta/New Orleans game screams fantasy paradise, so it’s time to get in on that action. Julio Jones costs $8K and Roddy White $7,100, so I’ll go the cheaper route and hope the torch isn’t passed just yet.

Steve Johnson seems crazy undervalued to me: he’s going against the Patriots, one of the best matchups of the day (the Patriots have given up over 9,500 gross passing yards the last two seasons!). Johnson’s the Bills #1 wide receiver and has three straight 1,000-yard seasons. I know he’s been banged up and the quarterback situation is up in the air, but whether it’s EJ Manuel or Kevin Kolb, Johnson will be able to produce. For $5,900, I’ll gladly take him.

Let’s switch over to running back. Ahmad Bradshaw sticks out to me because of the probable Game Script: for the same reason I like the Colts D, I like having Bradshaw, who should be positioned for 20 carries. That makes him a bargain at $6K. That leaves me with $18,400. As it turns out, picking Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson costs…. $18,300. I guess my work here is done.

So that’s how you enter a FanDuel contest. If you want to sign up and get a 50% first-time deposit bonus, click here. Or, if you just want to enter the free contest and compete again me and your fellow readers, click here. In both cases, the promo code is PERSPECTIVE.

Here’s the short sell: If you are a hardcore fantasy footballer, you probably already know that Footballguys.com is the single best source for fantasy football information. If you are a more casual fantasy football player, you’ll find that the tools available at Footballguys will make life much, much easier for you to win your league(s). Either way, I think a Footballguys.com subscription is a fantastic value for $29.95.

As for the longer sell: Before the New York Times, before Smart Football, and before Pro-Football-Reference, I was an aspiring young football writer with more energy than brains and more curiosity than experience. For reasons unbeknown to most everyone, Footballguys asked me in the summer of 2002 to join their staff. I’ve been a staff member ever since. At the time, Footballguys was the best kept secret in fantasy football; now it’s the best product in the industry. I continue to publish articles there, and you can find my 2013 articles at this link (the older articles are free, while the more recent ones are subscriber-only content).

I don’t make extra money if more people sign up for Footballguys, but I hope my readers subscribe because I think a subscription is a really good deal. If you play fantasy football and want to win your competitive league or save hours doing research for your local league, a Footballguys subscription is well worth it. For $29.95, you get:

• Always up to date and informed projections and rankings, along with 50,000 + pages of Footballguys Insider content.
• The Footballguys Draft Dominator (the single most valuable tool in all of fantasy football, IMO), along with the Lineup Dominator and Projections Dominator. Even if you don’t sign up for Footballguys, you can play around with Doug Drinen’s ultra-cool Rate My Team application for free.
• The Footballguys Insiders contest, giving you a chance at over $35,000 in prizes — this is 100% free to subscribers.
• During the season, My FBG is a fantastic customizable tool that makes roster management incredibly easy. If you’re in multiple fantasy leagues, this is a lifesaver, and can be fully integrated with certain league management systems.
• I won’t list every reason to sign up, but you can check out the Why Subscribe? link or just play around on the FBG homepage.
• In addition to everything else, a money-back guarantee. In the 11 years I’ve been at Footballguys, they’ve always offered this feature, and it’s almost never used. There’s a reason for that.

Anyway, I’m not very good at the salesman thing, so I’ll wrap things up. Bob Henry, a fellow staffer, puts together four incredible training camp updates during the pre-season. The first of these was released on August 7th, and is free, while the last three are subscriber-only content. Take a look at Bob’s first training camp report if you have any doubts about the quantity and quality of the content FBG provides.

Once you’re a subscriber, you can check out some of my recent articles, such as:

• Optimal Draft – Can a computer simulation tell us how to draft?
• Running Back Production by Quarter: Which running backs were most productive when active?
• Quarterback-By-Committee – Which quarterbacks pair up the best based on strength of schedule?

And for those waiting for more info on True Receiving Yards, check back tomorrow.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you already know all about our friends at Football Outsiders and the terrific analysis they provide every year. However, if by some chance you don’t know of them, or maybe you haven’t heard about their outstanding annual book, they now have copies of the 2013 Football Outsiders Almanac available for purchase. The book is jam-packed with their signature data (including game-charting stats), plus their usual stat-geeky essays, team and player perviews, and 2013 projections. And it’s not just the NFL, as Football Outsiders has some pretty sharp minds (Matt Hinton, Bill Connelly, Brian Fremeau) covering the college game, too.

The end of the Almanac includes an Acknowledgments section. For years, Football Outsiders has been nice enough to group me with Doug Drinen and Neil Paine as FO’s “comrades” in the statistical revolution. But this year, they’ve left me out of the Acknowledgments section. Entirely.

That’s because I’ve moved over to the Contributors section. I wrote team essays for the Giants, Eagles, and Jets, along with player comments for the majority of players on those teams. If you enjoy my work here, you’ll probably enjoy reading what I wrote about those three teams.

Football Outsiders has been a supporter of Chase Stuart for a while and Football Perspective from the beginning. But don’t confuse this for charity post: the FOA is a great guide, and I’m sure anyone who buys it will be very happy.

Long-time commenter Richie has been kind enough to create an Elo Ranking System where users can rank each of the 32 teams in the NFL. He’s hosting it on his site, but has come up with a Football Perspective-sounding url for us:

http://footballperspective.tooshay.us/teamrate.php

You can read more about how Elo Rankings work here, but the beauty is in its simplicity. All you need to do is answer one question: is Team A or Team B going to be better in 2013?

Vote early and often. The more results, the better. And please share with your friends. It will be fun to see what the wisdom of crowds tells us about team strength as we gear up for the 2013 season.

And a big thanks again to Richie for doing all the legwork!