21Feb 2019 by barrycm No Comments
It’s Draft Season!

It’s Draft Season!

NFL Draft, NFL Draft Prospects, Site News
Well, it’s always Draft Season, but, you know what I mean. Hopefully, you’re in the thick of doing your own research and evaluations, and maybe you’ve even begun assigning grades and building your own draft board. Personally, between running PowerHouse, being a dad, and spending time with my girlfriend, I simply don’t have enough time to watch a ton of college football. So, my process really starts with the Senior Bowl. Here on the site, we’ve done a lot to set up for the Draft, and we’re continuing to do more as quickly as we can. (more…)
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14Nov 2018 by barrycm No Comments
A Great Season After a Great Off-Season!

A Great Season After a Great Off-Season!

Uncategorized
We’re more than halfway through the 2018 season already - I’m constantly amazed at how fast the NFL season passes. It’s been a season full of surprises, and I just came across a blog article I started back in September and thought it would be interesting to finish it now with the benefit of a little hindsight. I’ve been an NFL Draft nut for more than 30 years. I’m not afraid to admit it, because I know I’m among friends here! My love of the NFL Draft is actually where PowerHouse came from. I was never really all that interested in how well I could predict who the real-life NFL teams would draft; I was more interested in seeing how I could do as a talent evaluator myself; what kind of…
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18Sep 2018 by barrycm No Comments
The 2018 NFL Season is Here!

The 2018 NFL Season is Here!

iGM Game, Site News
The NFL’s brief off-season is over (the way we see it, football never really stops; it just slows down in May and June)! We’ve had a great year so far here at PowerHouseGM.com, and it’s only getting better with the action starting on the field. Long-time PowerHouse members should notice that, over the past year or so, our site’s performance and reliability has improved by leaps and bounds. That’s due to several changes we made here behind the scenes. First, we brought in a new developer, Marianne, in July of 2017. She’s been a godsend, to put it mildly. One of our biggest problems historically was that our prior developer, talented as he is, had increasingly found it difficult to devote the time that our project needed to really keep…
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23Jan 2018 by barrycm No Comments
NFL Draft Season is Here Once Again

NFL Draft Season is Here Once Again

NFL Calendar, NFL Draft, NFL Draft Prospects, Site News
  This morning at breakfast, my younger son, who's eleven, asked me, "Dad, would you rather not watch the Super Bowl, or not watch the NFL Draft?" He was absolutely not kidding, and it speaks volumes that I had to think about it before deciding I co uld deal with listening to some live Draft podcast if I had to. Any other answer would be putting the cart before the horse, wouldn't it? The Draft is very different than when I first started following it closely as a collegian at Lehigh in the mid-1980s. The event has taken on a life of its own, spawning an entire cottage industry, and nobody says "Draftniks" anymore (because there are so many of us now that we're no longer a fringe element?) While…
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31Mar 2017 by barrycm No Comments
Scouting the NFL Draft for Dummies

Scouting the NFL Draft for Dummies

Football Scouting, NFL Draft, NFL Draft Prospects
Amateur Scouting & Draft Season If you’re our kind of person, this is your favorite time of the year. Baseball is on the horizon, and the NCAA tournament is in full swing, but the real March madness for us is scouting for the NFL Draft. Like most of you, scouting is a hobby for me. I have no professional scouting experience, but I have been to one degree or another forming my own opinions about NFL Draft prospects since around 1985, when I was in college. I’m an old-school “draftnik” (does anyone really use that word anymore?) and I was at the Marriott Marquis in person when Vinny Testaverde was drafted first overall in 1987 and the idea of actually attending an event that consisted of guys handing cards to…
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11Oct 2016 by barrycm No Comments
2017 NFL Draft Prospects Live

2017 NFL Draft Prospects Live

NFL Draft Prospects, Site News
  With both the NFL and college football seasons in full swing, it's not only time to enjoy both, but also time to crank up the scouting effort for the 2017 NFL Draft. We normally shoot for November 1st to get the draft prospects in place, but we beat that by a few weeks this year - the initial list of 1,000 prospects is now live on the Prospects page, under the Draft Room tab. Thanks to our friends at CBSSports.com, once again our source for our draft prospects list. Rob Rang and his team are always among the first to not only produce a deep, comprehensive list, but also to write meaningful scouting content for our rabid draft fans. (more…)
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10Sep 2016 by barrycm No Comments
2016 NFL Draft 20/20 Hindsight

2016 NFL Draft 20/20 Hindsight

iGM Game, NFL Draft
When you sign up to run a virtual NFL team here on PowerHouseGM.com, you start in the timeline at one week after the most recent Super Bowl. We do this in order to give newcomers lots to do right away and an immediate opportunity to put a thumbprint on their teams. After all, if you start in July, you've already missed the NFL Draft and free agency, and the waiver wire options are pretty lean. (more…)
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07Sep 2016 by barrycm No Comments
NFL Player Contracts Updated, Part 2

NFL Player Contracts Updated, Part 2

NFL Salary Cap, NFL Transactions
    Since I posted Part 1 of this 2-part series, I've done a bunch more updates to our contracts. Hearty thanks to Jason Fitzgerald of OvertheCap.com, who was very responsive when I reached out with a bunch of questions and suggested edits. Jason's site is a great resource for us, and belongs in all of our browser bookmarks. Going through the process of updating the contracts in our system is always an interesting exercise, and there is much to be learned from the moves that teams make and how contracts are structured. Here are some things that stood out this time around, in no particular order... (more…)
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16Aug 2016 by barrycm No Comments
NFL Player Contracts Updated, Part 1

NFL Player Contracts Updated, Part 1

NFL Player Contracts, NFL Salary Cap
I spent a ton of time over the past week meticulously going through all of the player contracts on our site and updating those that needed updating. As our General Managers running virtual NFL teams on our site know, their players' contracts match (exactly, or nearly exactly) the real-life contracts of their players. Going through this process can be tedious, but it's also very educational, and it provides some great insights into how NFL General Managers manage the salary cap and their rosters overall. First, a few words about our source, OverTheCap.com. Jason Fitzgerald, who runs OTC, is a kindred spirit - a fellow NFL geek (and I mean that lovingly,) who devotes countless hours to the tiniest contract details and gives us all a reliable resource for this esoteric…
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