Sirius XM announced Tuesday that actor Jerry Ferrara — best known as “Turtle” from HBO’s Entourage — will join the channel’s lineup this week.

Ferrara will make his fantasy-hosting debut on Thursday night at 7 p.m. Eastern with the cleverly named Ferrara’s Fantasy Football, which will hold that slot throughout the season.

“Fantasy football players love to talk to other fantasy football players about anything and everything fantasy football related,” Ferrara said in the media release. “When NFL season rolls around, I become totally consumed with fantasy football, and I know there are a lot of others out there like me. Having a place to talk it all out is almost therapeutic!”

Here’s a snippet of Ferrara’s fantasy football involvement from a 2009 Web video …

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

– The Yahoo! fantasy football app for Android has arrived and is available for free.

– Starting Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sports Grumblings will be joining the Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio lineup. The show will air for three hours and, according to its creators, “be a high-energy mix of fantasy sports talk and humor that is sure to get people talking.”

– Washington tight end Chris Cooley, an experienced fantasy player, says teammate Clinton Portis is “a steal” in Round 4, new quarterback Donovan McNabb is a “good pick” in Round 5 or 6 and Larry Johnson is his team’s “fantasy sleeper.” Good to see Cooley puts his biases aside when he plays fantasy. Then again, if you’re a teammate of Cooley’s, you have to love this type of homerism.

– As part of diving fully into its commercial alignment with the NFL, Papa John’s appears to be going hard after the fantasy player. One new campaign from the pizza chain will be asking fantasy leaguers all season to tell what makes theirs the best, with the winning group heading to next year’s NFL Draft. There will also be a contest to get free pizza delivered next Thursday (opening night) by NFL great Cris Carter, as well as fantasy football-themed Facebook badges available via the Papa John’s fan page. This writeup mentions the Papa campaign, as well as efforts by Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters, Ruby Tuesday’s and T.G.I.Friday’s to reach out to fantasy players.

– Philadelphia tight end Brent Celek obviously ran a bit short on time and motivation in filling out the fantasy football league he opened to fans. The final three openings were filled on Tuesday, going to the first response with the Eagles’ final exhibition opponent, the first to correctly answer where the franchise played its first game back in 1933 (Baker Bowl) and — to ensure Celek will get targeted plenty — the first with a photo of quarterback Kevin Kolb’s jersey. You may all now continue on with your NFL season preparations.

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Maurice Jones-Drew has been the public centerpiece of the Sirius XM fantasy sports channel since its launch last month, and now we’ll finally get to hear his fantasy analysis.

His show, Runnin’ with MJD, will debut Saturday night from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET. (It’ll run again on Saturday, Aug. 14, before settling into its regular Friday night slot.)

“I’ll use my experience and my sources to give Sirius XM listeners the best fantasy football info I can give them,” Jones-Drew said in the press release. “We all get into fantasy football for the competition and the cameraderie but the goal is to dominate your league and I’m confident I can help people do that.”

We’ve written multiple times in the past on this site about Jones-Drew’s experience with and respect for fantasy, so we’ll certainly be interested to hear his takes. If nothing else, the Jaguars running back certainly brings unique perspective among his fantasy brethren.

“I’m friends with a lot of guys around this league but if they’re on my fantasy roster it’s all business,” Jones-Drew said in the release. “If they’re not performing for me, I may just call them up live on air and cut them.”

How many of us wish we could have that kind of access?

Sirius XM has been trickling fantasy analysis from MJD via the channel’s website, namely his top players at each position. Jones-Drew has also started to mix in some fantasy on Twitter here and there (reportedly naming Houston’s Arian Foster is top “sleeper” for 2010, most recently).

Here’s hoping the running back’s show only helps to get more athletes involved in fantasy and foster greater connection and acceptance between our games and the teams and leagues at the center of them. At the least, let’s hope for an entertaining show in a genre (athlete/coach shows) that can often be pretty boring.

Name: Tony Cincotta
Job title(s): VP of marketing, talk show host (FantasyPros911.com)
Full-time in fantasy? No, also a project manager for Fiserv
Age: 41
Education: UMass-Boston
Family status: Married with 3 children — Tatum 9, Cole 7, Brady 4 (Named after a QB)
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Baseball
Favorite sport to watch: Football
Favorite team (any sport): Boston Red Sox
All-time favorite athlete: Earl Campbell
Years playing fantasy: 25 years

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I enjoyed playing fantasy sports at early age and continued to play into my “adult” life. So I would look for any edge necessary to decimate my opponents and take home the cash. That is when I discovered the world of podcasts. I thought the podcasts contained great information, but they could help you with your lack of sleep as well. There was no entertainment value at all, no passion, and I wanted to put character into the world of podcasts. Most of the podcast hosts at that time thought they were Walter Cronkite. In the early days, I started recording the podcasts and placing them on iTunes. I was immediately amazed at the amount of people that started to tune in.

The e-mails were incredible, and I was providing great information and saying some of the craziest things ever heard on a podcast. That’s when the light went off and I said, “why not try to make a living and enjoy your work.” Then, through calling in and meeting the folks at MLB.com, we launched www.FantasyBaseballMafia.com. It was a small startup site with no money and the dream to bring competive Fantasy Baseball Keeper Leagues to the fantasy baseball industry. That mission was accomplished, and then I ran into the great Lenny Melnick.

Three questions

1. How did you get started doing fantasy sports podcasts and talking fantasy sports on the radio? How has the audience changed in the time you’ve been doing it?

I started in the podcast industry because of my love of talk radio growing up in Boston. I would listen to sports radio and shows like Howard Stern as opposed to music. In my mind, I thought the podcast industry would take off and I could put together a great product for the listener. In the early days I was lucky to have great guests such as Mike Siano, Cory Schwartz, Pete McCarthy, Lawr Michaels and Lenny Melnick to name a few. Those guys gave me instant credibility, and the shows became very popular. The shows have evolved to where the listeners wanted fewer guests and more of our opinions. That was pretty humbling that people actually cared what you had to say and would take a couple hours a week out of their lives to listen to you. So we gave them what they wanted, and each year the listenership keeps rising at an incredible rate.
I then wanted to have the opportunity to extend the show out to places where people would not be looking for a fantasy sports podcast. So I started promoting my shows to local radio and got a chance to work an NFL draft show in 2008 for FOX Sports Radio in Jacksonville. That was like giving an alcoholic a beer. I wanted more and pursued it like there was nothing else on Earth.

I was able to land a show on ESPN Radio in St. Augustine, Fla., called The Sports Bash. The show was a big hit in the area, and we were able to attract the casual sports fan over to our eccentric world of fantasy sports. Then the first time that we started talking to Sirius XM about starting a 24-7 fantasy sports radio station, it felt awesome. We now have placed fantasy sports in the mainstream — right there with Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey and, of course, the Boss (Bruce Springsteen)!

2. What brought you together with the other Fantasy Pros 911 guys to launch that site?

The move to FantasyPros911.com was an easy one for me. At the time, I was working at FantasyBaseballMafia.com, and the idea there was just to keep things simple and small. I had the itch and wanted a little more. There was this guy named Lenny Melnick who did fantasy baseball over at MLB.com. I ended up meeting up with Lenny after listening to his podcasts. To this day, Lenny is the only guy doing a solo podcast that I can listen to. (So if you are currently doing a podcast solo, grab a co-host. Friendly advice. LOL.) Lenny was part of the Melnick & Greco website, but they wanted to add staff and expand the site. They grabbed Patrick Di Caprio from FantasyBaseballGenerals.com, and I loved the energy and passion of the parties involved.

The first two years have been exciting, and the guys have been tremendous to work with. We are well established in the baseball community and now are working to improve our fantasy football product to match our baseball offerings. Paul Greco has been busy recruiting some of the top writers in the industry. I am fired up about the direction of the site and the 2010 fantasy football season. The basis of the site was to build a community where our readers and listeners have access to Lenny Melnick, Paul Greco, Pat Dicaprio and myself. We provide a 1-800 number for instant advice. We answer emails in an hour, except during the shows. (We are good but not that good.) We also have a community section at the site where users create their own page and can discuss anything from fantasy sports to hot chicks.

3. You bounce around among several fantasy sports (baseball, football and basketball), beyond the normal one or two on which most analysts focus. What, to you, are the key differences among the different fantasy sports, and what are the positives and negatives for each?

This is a great question, and the reason I bounce around is ADD. The one thing that is essential to success in any fantasy sport is opportunity. You do not have to manage a player’s success to find the next hidden gem. It is all about opportunity, if a baseball player attempts to steal 50 bases and is thrown out on 27 occasions, that’s my guy. Most people see that player as a guy with 23 stolen bases. I see it as a player who has to improve or the coach would not allow him to keep stealing bases.

In football you want to focus on running backs that have no capable [fill-in]. If you think that Frank Gore or Michael Turner is a better player than DeAngelo Williams, than you need to speak with Jon Gruden. Gore and Turner have the opportunity for maximum touches. That is why Cedric Benson should have never surprised people last season. In football, focus on touches and targets, and the points will come. Fantasy basketball is gaining popularity. The amazing thing in basketball is the different styles of league. In head-to-head leagues, Dwight Howard is a stud. On the Roto side, he is a category killer.

The biggest positive in fantasy sports is football is 16 weeks and is not the drain of a six-month season. This hurts basketball and baseball with your average fantasy sports player. I have come to love daily fantasy sports contests and often play over at FantasyFactor.com and FanDuel.com. I think this is the wave of the future for fantasy baseball and basketball players.

Bonus: What exactly are you “all fired up” about?

I am all fired up about life! I sit and talk about fantasy sports and have a great family and a hot wife. Why would I not be fired up? I can host a fantasy football show on Sunday morning, take 50 calls about their lineups, then shift the focus to my teams in the afternoon and watch Ray Rice bring you a fantasy championship. Then to celebrate my championship and the fact that I have just won an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas, you head to the strip joint with your wife. (There is nothing better than having a lap dance with your wife in the VIP room with you. Try it and e-mail your thoughts.) That is living a life of fantasy my friends, make it rain in 2010.