A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

- Fantasy Players Association president Scott Atkins has a report on late WCOFF payments to 2010 winners, including this quote from co-owner Dustin Ashby: “We’re in the process of correcting a mistake that was made in the processing of player awards. The issue causing the delay has been corrected. We expect the distribution of awards to be completed soon.”

- Many might be unfamiliar with Synsport.com, but this week’s announcement that the site will likely shut down before the 2011 NFL season reminds us of the niches that remain in the fantasy industry and the dedication of those users. Creator John Marino also decries the effect of the big, free league providers.

- Tony Holm and his Fantasy Sharks crew recently launched BaseballSharks.com, which just so happens to deal in fantasy baseball content.

- RotoWire recently rolled out a fantasy baseball draft kit app for the increasingly popular Android phone, which joins the existing iPhone version.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

Name: Greg Kellogg
Nickname: Greg to friends, komments on the web
Job title(s): Solutions Architect (real world), BlogTalkRadio Host (fantasy world)
Full-time in fantasy? Not currently though I have been in my past
Age: 55
Education: Lots of college — no degree
Family status: Married for 34 years
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football and college basketball
Favorite team (any sport): Detroit Lions (yeah, I’m a masochist at heart)
All-time favorite athlete: This is tough: In football probably Barry Sanders, but overall I would have to say Jesse Owens for how he represented us at the Berlin Olympics.
Years playing fantasy: 21 (since 1988)

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I started writing a column titled Kellogg’s Komments in the mid-’90s. I was the first to syndicate my work to multiple fantasy sites, with Komments appearing on more than two dozen sites, including Mr. Football (now Football Guys), The Huddle and Sam Caplan’s Fantasy Insider. Shortly after that I opened my own site, Komments.com, where I provided a forum for up-and-coming writers to be published.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes:
Producer, FOXSports.com (full-time)
Creator of the Ladies of Football league that promotes the hobby to ladies
Partner, FantasyAsylum.com
Sr. Writer, GridironGrumblings.com (now SportsGrumblings.com)
Guest Writer, SportsIllustrated.com
Partner, FantasySportsGroup.com
Radio Host, FantasySharks.com

I also was awarded with the prestigious Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association (FSWA) Annual Award for the Best Fantasy Football In-Season Article, Feature or Series — an award that my article, penned by another author, received two years later.

Named to the inaugural FSWA Hall of Fame class in 2010.

Before fantasy, I worked in: The Army (military intelligence — Russian Linguist) and Defense Contracting.

Three questions

1. How did the transition from Komments.com to your various fantasy pursuits since then come about? Was it tough to let the old site go?
I was spending about 40 to 60 hours a week on Komments, and it was getting to be too much when I also had a 50-hour-per-week paying job. I sent a notice to my email list stating that I was going to cut back on the work I was doing for Komments to maintain my sanity (and my marriage). A week later, Mike Perlow contacted me to ask if I would be interested in a job with FOXSports.com. It is always tough to let go of a business you have built from nothing (even when the business isn’t making any money). But the opportunity to get paid for a full-time job in the fantasy sports industry was well worth letting Komments go.

2. How did your background in military intelligence and data analysis feed into your fantasy exploits?
Military intelligence trains you to be very cognizant of patterns — to be logical in your analysis and to dig through reams of minutiae to find one small sliver of intelligence. Fantasy sports analysts — at least the good ones — do the same thing. When I first started, news and insight were hard to come by. Hence the 40 to 60 hours of weekly digging. Now information is everywhere, and the difference is in the analysis. We still dig through all the news, but now things like how the pension change is causing assistant coaches to consider changing careers is as important as a Pro Bowl left tackle changing teams.

3. Can you give us the full (OK, maybe abridged) story on the FAD?
Sure. Joe Bryant and I created FanEx from some folks in the old rec.sport.football.fantasy newsgroup. We started doing live drafts at fantasy football conventions early on. These were extremely popular and presented us with large crowds. We found that if we would give a short analysis to go with our picks, the folks watching would maintain interest, so we took the idea back to the league and started a May Draft where we provide our analysis of our picks, hence the name FanEx Analysis Draft — shortened to FAD for everyone now. In some years we have added guest analysis and during our live drafts we would take questions from the audience. This remains a very popular draft to this day.

Bonus: Be honest — would your bumper sticker say “I’d rather be fishing” or “I’d rather be drafting”?
Truthfully, it would be “I’d rather be CATCHING,” but if the fish aren’t biting then how about “I’d rather be Drafting while I am Fishing”?

Any time you see a list of the top 10 anything, you know that a fair bit of subjectivity went into the selections and you probably take the list with a grain of salt.

That said, you won’t find many more trusted resources for “all things Web” than Mashable.com, with its 3 million-plus unique visitors a month and more than 2 million Twitter followers. So when that site comes out with its “Top 10 Fantasy Football Sites to Help You Win,” it’s at least worth passing along.

The article doesn’t specifically say that the list represents a ranking, but the whole numbering thing seems to indicate as much. Here are the sites that Mashable’s Miranda Lin likes best, with a snippet of her comments for each …

1. Footballguys.com - “Having up-to-the-minute breaking news is the life-blood of any fantasy footballer, and Football Guys’ network of writers and inside sources is one of the best in the business, producing an “avalanche of news” that will keep you ahead of the game.”

2. RotoWorld.com - “The speed and quality of their newswire is second only to Football Guys and their ‘On Demand Draft Guide’ ($14.99) produces an easily printable document filled with player profiles and stat projections, ADP reports, rookie rankings, depth charts and injury reports that are updated in real-time and tailored to your league settings.”

3. The Huddle — “The Huddle has it all: Cheatsheets, player profiles and rankings, mock drafts, game predictions, free agent reports, start/bench advice and stat trackers. … But what really sets The Huddle apart are its forums.”

4. Fantasy Sharks — “This is the only site on this list that is 100% free — and it doesn’t give up anything in quality.”

5. FFChamps.com — “The site’s crown jewel is the FFC Performance Index, an in-season ranking and projection system that calculates which of your players will have the best outing.”

6. Football Docs — “Apparently the Football Docs’ advanced degrees in engineering have also given them an inside track on fantasy football trends, draft tactics, lineup decision-making, and player rankings and projections.”

7. CBSSports.com — “Although it’s not as organized or as user-friendly as some of the other sites, it’s hard to argue with the quality of CBS Sports’ product.”

8. Pro Football Reference — “Doug Drinen has put together a super-organized, easy-to-navigate collection of football statistics that allows users to search any aspect of a team or player’s performance throughout history.”

9. Draft Sharks — “With a sleek-looking interface that provides custom tailored cheatsheets (called MVP Boards), weekly player rankings, newsy and gossipy articles, personalized trade advice and in-season strength of season updates, Draft Sharks believes it can ‘out-analyze other websites.’”

10. ESPN.com — “In addition to the usual news and analysis from its stable of experts, including five-time Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) award-winner Matt Berry (aka ‘The Talented Mr. Roto’), ESPN has begun to offer a variety of services across different media platforms.”

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

- The Fantasy Players Association website passes along word that the Fantasy Football Players Championship has chosen RealTimeSports to host its leagues this year. The FPA also raises some concerns that the FFPC audience might have with the switch from previous host MyFantasyLeague.com.

- You’ve surely heard of the fancy new fantasy league-hosting product at NFL.com, but did you know that EA Sports will be providing the player projections for the full season and on a weekly basis?

- Have you ever played in a Yahoo! public league (or a free mock draft anywhere) and gotten annoyed by the person who screws the thing up with idiotic early picks? Well, FantasySharks.com is encouraging them. For the fifth straight year, the site is supporting a challenge in which participants join a “competitive” Yahoo! public league and draft a kicker and a team defense with their first two picks. The top prize (a sum of “sand dollars,” Fantasy Sharks’ fake currency) goes to anyone who can win their league.

- For accuracy in running back rankings, RotoWorld edged the field of participants who have been in the FF Librarian’s Accuracy Challenge for all three years it has existed. KFFL, however, has been dynamite over the past two seasons.

- In the wake of Yahoo! opening up its fantasy sports API, FanGraphs takes a crack at explaining a bit about what it is and what it allows you to do.

- Did you miss out on fantasy points when England’s clear goal was disallowed against Germany? Did you miss the game and the replay? Legos have your back.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).