accommodations with other players ahead of him. Pitta is still very muc

January is a difficult time for a footy fan to be on Twitter. With the transfer window open, hundreds of accounts rack up their followers alleging to know of an impending transfer. Some are legitimate; most are not. What, without question, cannot be questioned, however, is the insatiable appetite that Twitterites have for information. Any kind of information. Fact or fiction, in 140 characters or less, please and thank-you. Now. This week we heard the story of 17-year-old English schoolboy Samuel Rhodes who pretended to be a football journalist, guessed correctly on a few scoops, and managed to get to over 20,000 followers. He is not the first to do this and wont be the last. The outing of Rhodes came in the same week that former Premier League star Stan Collymore took a brave stance to demand more from Twitter to stop the disgusting levels of abuse he receives, many of which simply comes down to the colour of his skin. Twitter, like the world, can be a dark and depressing place, where it is easy to lose faith in humanity. Yet, it can also be magnificent. For me, it has shown me things on this gorgeous planet of ours I wouldve never have seen, it has introduced me to some brilliant writers, whose work I would never have found, and given me a regular education on things that interest me, helping me become more knowledgeable about subjects I am passionate about. It is up to me to ensure, from Twitter, I get much more of the latter than the former, but it is getting harder and harder to find the gems amongst the rubbish. For that reason, this week I learned about the examples of Rhodes and Collymore indirectly through Twitter. I do not follow either. This is my personal choice. Rhodes, whose account has since been suspended, succeeded not necessarily because he was right more than he was wrong but because he was able, in 140 characters or less, to write what people would be interested in. He quite often didnt write the truth, yet people were interested in what he had to say, so he became popular. This month I have experimented in following Twitter accounts who told me they had inside track on transfers. The moment they started retweeting articles from the UK press telling me Juventus were selling Paul Pogba and Claudio Marchisio to Manchester United tomorrow, for example, they quickly became unfollowed. I am aware that I am not their target audience. I care very little for transfer gossip. I actually blame the brilliant magazine Match, bought by almost every teenage English boy in the 80s and 90s, for this when they once ran on their front page a picture of my favourite player, David Platt, claiming they had an exclusive that he was returning to Aston Villa. Once I opened the magazine, I found it was an April Fools Joke and my college mates laughed harder than they did at Alan Partridge. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, no chance, I am waiting for the player to be introduced at the press conference. That is just me, however. Football fans are obsessed to read their clubs being linked with players and, incredibly, most of them either do not care or do not know that most successful transfers come out-of-the-blue and the long, drawn out ones done in the media are often the ones that do not get completed. In a week of tweets around Rhodes and Collymore, thousands more rained down on timelines last Thursday when a supposed new way of ensuring a transfer was secured came to light. Wayne Rooney has started following Juan Mata on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/85RgaHSWe5 — Mr. Transfer News (@MrTransferNewss) January 23, 2014 Notice the double S? #smalldetails Now, it is very unlikely that Ed Woodward and his staff at Manchester United sent out an in-house memo to their players saying please follow our latest recruit. So, it is safe to assume that good ol Wazza followed his new mate to get to know him a bit more and allow him, once his new mate decides to follow back (note - Mata has been slightly more cautious who he follows in light of this news and continues to read tweets from Spanish & Chelsea teammates as well as others from Coldplay, The Beatles and Rafael Nadal) to then send direct messages even though he will soon have his mobile phone number. If you were a football fan on Twitter last Thursday for a couple of hours between 1pm and 3pm Eastern time it would have been nearly impossible to escape the "news" of Rooneys latest follow. Retweet after retweet after retweet. Done in less than a second with little to no thought. Yet, what is it all for? Sure, you can learn something about who people follow, I will give you that, but this? Told to us all that many times? Who really needs it? My mind went back to a more innocent time when the same thirst for information existed but wasnt available to people. RT @YorkshirePost: @BrianSpecialOneClough now follows @LeedsUnited. Deal must be done. Follow @YorkshirePost to find out when players start following @BrianSpecialOneClough. Football fans of those times certainly werent as uneducated about the game just because they werent able to get access to information quicker. They read the brilliant amount of literature made available to them by outstanding journalists whose reputations were based on their copy, not the amount of followers they had. So what are football fans learning from Twitter in 2014? It is believed that there are now over a billion twitter accounts that have been started since it was launched in March 2006. The same statistics reveal that over 100 million are active daily tweeters and, on average, over 500 million tweets per day are sent out. In an era where it is getting harder and harder to get people to read, people are tweeting more than ever. Once seen as a platform to make sure consumers can read what interests them, it has now provided those followers with a reason, almost instantly, not to bother opening it as their eyes are immediately guided elsewhere. When I tweeted about this article I am fully aware that some people didnt even have the attention span to read the entire tweet. Others, read the tweet and didnt click the link, some clicked the link and jumped ship on the article earlier on, some are still with me but have skimmed this sentence because too many people do not read properly anymore, leaving the rest of you still sticking with this. For now. Thank-You. This week I had a discussion with a young man in this industry who wanted to know more about what he should do. For some reason he wanted to talk to me yet, despite that decision, he is a smart guy with a good sports brain. He wondered if he should tweet more when he is watching sports; I told him to tweet less. During a match, Twitter opens up a door on a gigantic theatre and allows you to come in with your mates to discuss what is going on as the game plays out in front of you all. During the discussion you will often meet new friends and quite often this can be great fun but the next time someone calls you out for your opinion on a team or a player I suggest, if you care, to check how often he tweets during a match. If he tweets often it will be difficult to watch the game close enough to form strong, informed opinions. With live games around the world giving football fans more access than ever, attention spans are getting shorter and shorter as people cannot wait to jump on their mobile device to give their take on something. When a television replay is being given to the audience, to show a great example of what just happened, millions around the world are missing it because they have their head into their mobile device tweeting to their followers what they just saw. Some people love this and everyone is entitled to their own cup of tea but if you are buying a ticket to that kind of party you should know what you are signing up for. Hashtags and retweets open up your very own, personal Twitter Universe and, as the stories around Rhodes and Collymore have proven, can pull you, even amidst the tranquility of a Sunday morning, to a land of vile insults where absolute lies are talked about as facts. It is a dangerous world that continues to get your attention, very often over the people sitting in the exact same room as you. (You know you have done it; truly well done if you havent). For a fan, Twitter can give you a lot of good things but if you must ignore the game, or person you are sat with, to dive head first into Twitter, be careful what you are choosing to read and write. You owe that much to your brain and the one thing that is getting more and more precious to all of us - your time. #thanksforstickingwithme Dorance Armstrong Jr. Cowboys Jersey .com) - Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson lost an appeal to have his indefinite suspension overturned, the NFL announced Friday. Jamize Olawale Jersey . -- Raiders wide receiver Jacoby Ford made it through a third straight practice without any setbacks and expects to play in Oaklands regular-season finale against San Diego. http://www.cowboysproshopauthentic.com/Customized/ .com) - The San Francisco Giants delivered plenty of big hits to tie the World Series. Connor Williams Cowboys Jersey . Louis Cardinals, the team will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the opening of the SkyDome. Jays legends Jimmy Key and Ernie Whitt, members of playoff and World Series-winning teams of the past, will be on hand for the festivities to look back at what was the beginning of the Jays halcyon years. Tavon Austin Cowboys Jersey . With nothing tangible at stake, the Raptors turned in their most impressive outing of the fall in their seventh and second to last exhibition tilt against their stiffest competition yet, but they lost a couple starters in the process.Each week, TSN.ca Fantasy Editor Scott Cullen, NFL Editor Ben Fisher, and Isaac Owusu discuss three hot fantasy football topics. What was your best answer to a Three and Out question all year? Scott Cullen: 1. With a number of rookie receivers breaking out lately, which one will finish the year with the most fantasy points? Four rookie receivers -- DeAndre Hopkins, Keenan Allen, Kenbrell Thompkins and Terrance Williams -- have more than 300 yards receiving, so those are the leading contenders (Robert Woods at 274 yards could be in the mix, too) and, from that group, I like Allen the best. He has a prolific quarterback, Philip Rivers, whose game appears to have been resurrected this season and Allen is the best wide receiver option on his team, thanks to Malcom Floyd and Danario Alexander suffering season-ending injuries. Hopkins might be the most gifted of the group, but hes still behind Andre Johnson in the Texans pecking order and the quarterback play in Houston has been shaky to say the least. Thompkins is turning into a big-play threat for Tom Brady, but is competing with Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman and fellow rookie Aaron Dobson for targets. Williams has been a big-play threat for the Cowboys, particularly when Miles Austin was out of the lineup, but it remains to be seen how much he will get the ball now that Austin is healthy. For a team that already has Dez Bryant and Jason Witten commanding a lot of attention in the passing game, Williams may need another Austin injury if hes going to finish among the rookie leaders. Ben Fisher: I nailed one early; it was all downhill from there. In predicting pre-season sleepers for big seasons I went all in on Green Bay Packers RB Eddie Lacy. I was a fan of Lacys work at Alabama, blamed the pre-season “fat photo” on the angle of the camera, and loved the opportunity the starting running back in Green Bay was getting this season. Lacy is a Top 10 RB that could have been had as late as the fifth-round. My good advice wasnt just restricted to the pre-season, I was high on a couple San Diego Chargers in Ryan Mathews and Keenan Allen early on and gave up on Stevan Ridley before too much fantasy heartache, but grabbing Lacy early was the best I did in this column all year. Isaac Owusu: I havent done too many “Three and Out” questions, but last weeks decision between Dennis Pitta and Jacob Tamme would undoubtedly be my best answer. Pitta didnt have the big day as a follow up to his week 14 debut, with only 2 catches for 24 yards on 4 targets especially compared to Tammes 1 catch for 9 yards on 2 targets.The numbers clearly arent as far apart, but the glaring number was their snap counts. Tamme was on the field for just 9 of 54 snaps while Pitta saw the field for 30 of 66 snaps. Tamme frankly just isnt a viable fantasy option at tight end at this moment and the Denver Broncos have made their accommodations with other players ahead of him. Pitta is still very much apart of the Baltimore Ravens offence and should continue to see growth in his production as one of Joe Flaccos top two favourite targets next to Torrey Smith. What was your worst answer to a Three and Out question all year? Cullen: 2. What do you expect out of Steven Jackson in Atlanta this season? For a 30-year-old running back -- a time when production generally starts to fade -- this is a really good situation for Jackson. Hes been cranking out 1,000-yard seasons in each of the last eight years for St. Louis, but has scored six touchdowns or fewer in each of the last four seasons because the Rams havent had much of a team supporting him. In Atlanta, Jackson is the supporting cast for one of the leagues bestt passing offences and a past-his-prime Michael Turner rushed for 11 touchdowns with the Falcons last year, so its not unreasonable to think that Jackson could roll to 1,000 rushing yards and maybe push double digit touchdowns this year.dddddddddddd Fisher: There were a few doozies. I was high on Terrelle Pryors fast start – QB1 high – while at the same time only lukewarm on Philip Rivers. But my biggest blunders of 2013 were suggesting to owners that Knowshon Moreno was too inconsistent to spend a lot of their waiver budget on, and to drop Cam Newton, right before the Panthers turned things around and ripped off eight wins in a row. Moreno and Newton will each finish the year as Top 5 scorers at their position. The lessons learned? After struggling in his sophomore season, Newton found his form again as all great QBs do and deserves owners patience in riding out any slumps in the future. And as for Moreno, all Denver Broncos starter must be owned for the foreseeable future. Owusu: My worst answer had to have been regarding Michael Crabtree. When I told fantasy owners to treat him as a no more than flex option and to just expect him to play on limited snaps, I didnt expect him to be this productive. He has seen his workload increase each of the three weeks since his return. His involvement in the offence has been just what fantasy owners who took a chance on him wanted. He has seen no less than 4 targets in any of his appearances (eight in week 14 and six in week 15). Its clear that going in to this weeks matchup which should be the Super Bowl for most fantasy leagues, that Crabtree can be relied on to be involved in the 49ers offence like a WR2 should. Give me one sleeper keeper to keep an eye on for next season? Cullen: Since my one sleeper keeper would probably be Allen, and I mentioned him in the first answer, Ill look elsewhere. How about Arizona Cardinals WR Michael Floyd, who has 196 more receiving yards than Larry Fitzgerald, but has six fewer touchdowns? Floyd has had some ups and downs in his second season, but enough ups that hes very likely to go over 1,000 yards and its reasonable to expect strong numbers from him for the next few seasons. Fisher: There are a few receivers I had in the running for this. Alshon Jeffery and Antonio Brown had too good of seasons overall to really be considered sleepers so my pick heading into the fantasy off-season will be Keenan Allen. I mentioned above I was high on the rookie early and he only got better from there. Allen will finish the year as a middling WR2 but he performed closer to a middling WR1 down the stretch. In first-year head coach Mike McCoys offence, San Diego players were fantasy juggernauts. That shouldnt change for next season; the only thing that might are Allens opportunities. Rivers knows he can trust the third-round receiver, his targets over the course of a full 16 games could see an uptick. Owusu: Arizona Cardinals RB Andre Ellington could be a major sleeper keeper for next season. He came into the year with modest expectations of his production but if you look at the numbers the potential is there for him to be a major fantasy factor for next year. Right now he is the only player in the league who is averaging more than 5 yards per carry and more than 10 yards per catch, that is Marshall Faulk territory! His big play ability makes him somebody to look out for, even though he hasnt been a every week starter for the Cardinals. He is very much a dual threat at running back, and eventually head coach Bruce Arians should grow tiresome of the lack of production from Rashard Mendenhall (3.1 yards per carry) and Ellington should be able to feast as a dangerous PPR fantasy option. 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