Fantasy football week one
I thought of doing this last year, but for whatever reason (laziness?) never actually did it. This may be a complete snooze for most people out there, assuming anyone is still reading this blog, but I thought it'd be fun to keep a weekly journal of my experiences in my fantasy football league: the (sometime) ups and (usual) downs of the (geeky) life of a fantasy football owner.
This year marks my eighth season in the Schuler Books Fantasy Football League. I have never won a league title, and I chalk this up to a combination of bad luck and a little bit of my own indifference. I'm not the type of fantasy football owner who is checking the stats every week, monitoring the waiver wire, and wheeling and dealing elaborate trades to improve my team. I am in fantasy football more for the camaraderie than the desire to win the league title. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be league champion--particularly because there is money involved in our league--but the problem is I just don't have the time or inclination to consistently upgrade my team throughout the season. My favorite part of the fantasy football season are the handful of excuses I have to get together with the other league owners and drink a few beers.
Last Sunday, we had our draft at Tripper's sports bar on the east side of Lansing. Unlike most other leagues, we don't have our draft online but do it live and in-person. This gives our owners plenty of opportunities to trash talk and B.S. and either rip each other or compliment each other after each draft pick. We have a large white poster board with a grid that is positioned at the end of a long table. With each draft pick, the owner in question making his pick is forced to run the gauntlet of the other owners and face either the cheers and jeers after he writes the name of the player he has chosen. Since the majority of us are bookstore geeks, the jeering is generally kept to a minimum, but there is plenty of smack talk and bullshit slung throughout the evening.
As usual, I didn't do any pre-draft research until about eight hours before the draft. This is much like my approach to Christmas shopping. Every autumn, I tell myself that I'm going to do my Christmas shopping early but inevitably put it off until a week before the big day. Every summer, I am bound and determined to prepare early for the fantasy football draft, but put it off until either a day before the draft or THE day of the draft. (I must admit that my "research" usually only consists of finding an online fantasy football ranking site, ESPN has a good one, and printing out their rankings of NFL players by position.
Despite my procrastination, I feel pretty good about my draft this year. That's not always the case. Sometimes I pick too impulsively, sometimes I don't keep into account which players are one the way up and which are getting old and on the way down. Last year, for example, I drafted LaDainian Tomlinson, a somewhat long-in-the-tooth running back, in the second or third round and he did virtually nothing for me the entire season. I should have known better than to draft a guy on the dowslide of his career so high in the draft, and would have been better to go with a younger, up and coming running back.
This year, my draft position was seventh (in a ten team league). My strategy was to pick the best player available, regardless of position, in the first round. The NFL has increasingly become a league dominated by quarterbacks and wide receivers. It's become rare to find teams that have one dominant running back that is focus of the offense. Beyond Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans and Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings, it tends to be running back by committee on the other NFL teams. Anyway, my first draft pick was wide receiver Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans, who has led the league in receiving yardage the last two seasons.
After Andre Johnson, I took the best available running back in the second round (DeAngelo Williams). My first quarterback pick came in the third round: Phillip Rivers. This is one pick that doesn't excite me. It was between Rivers and Tony Romo, and I'm thinking perhaps I should have taken Romo. I had Rivers a few seasons ago (2008?) and he was a disappointment. I went with running back Knowshon Moreno in round four, and took another wide receiver, Chad Ochocinco, in the fifth round. In the sixth round, I drafted the second-highest ranked tight end, Antonio Gates. After about the sixth round, it's garbage time. I feel good about my choices of receivers Braylon Edwards and Dez Bryant, and think I might have gotten a steal with Colts receiver Austin Collie in the 14th and final round. I hope that I can at least use some of these receivers as trade bait if the need arises. I'm also pleased with my backup quarterback Mark Sanchez, and my backup tight end, Chris Cooley. Depending on how the season develops, both of these guys might be starters. The rest of my roster includes running back Brandon Jacobs (7th round), the Dallas Cowboys defense (12th round), and kicker Ryan Longwell (13th round).
I loaded up my roster with five wide receivers and only three running backs. We'll see if this strategy works. If one or two of my running backs get injured or have sub-par seasons, I will have to jettison one or two of these receivers in a trade--or else check the waiver wire for any unknown who, out of nowhere, starts to have a good year.
The NFL season starts tonight, and I'll post an update next week.
This year marks my eighth season in the Schuler Books Fantasy Football League. I have never won a league title, and I chalk this up to a combination of bad luck and a little bit of my own indifference. I'm not the type of fantasy football owner who is checking the stats every week, monitoring the waiver wire, and wheeling and dealing elaborate trades to improve my team. I am in fantasy football more for the camaraderie than the desire to win the league title. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be league champion--particularly because there is money involved in our league--but the problem is I just don't have the time or inclination to consistently upgrade my team throughout the season. My favorite part of the fantasy football season are the handful of excuses I have to get together with the other league owners and drink a few beers.
Last Sunday, we had our draft at Tripper's sports bar on the east side of Lansing. Unlike most other leagues, we don't have our draft online but do it live and in-person. This gives our owners plenty of opportunities to trash talk and B.S. and either rip each other or compliment each other after each draft pick. We have a large white poster board with a grid that is positioned at the end of a long table. With each draft pick, the owner in question making his pick is forced to run the gauntlet of the other owners and face either the cheers and jeers after he writes the name of the player he has chosen. Since the majority of us are bookstore geeks, the jeering is generally kept to a minimum, but there is plenty of smack talk and bullshit slung throughout the evening.
As usual, I didn't do any pre-draft research until about eight hours before the draft. This is much like my approach to Christmas shopping. Every autumn, I tell myself that I'm going to do my Christmas shopping early but inevitably put it off until a week before the big day. Every summer, I am bound and determined to prepare early for the fantasy football draft, but put it off until either a day before the draft or THE day of the draft. (I must admit that my "research" usually only consists of finding an online fantasy football ranking site, ESPN has a good one, and printing out their rankings of NFL players by position.
Despite my procrastination, I feel pretty good about my draft this year. That's not always the case. Sometimes I pick too impulsively, sometimes I don't keep into account which players are one the way up and which are getting old and on the way down. Last year, for example, I drafted LaDainian Tomlinson, a somewhat long-in-the-tooth running back, in the second or third round and he did virtually nothing for me the entire season. I should have known better than to draft a guy on the dowslide of his career so high in the draft, and would have been better to go with a younger, up and coming running back.
This year, my draft position was seventh (in a ten team league). My strategy was to pick the best player available, regardless of position, in the first round. The NFL has increasingly become a league dominated by quarterbacks and wide receivers. It's become rare to find teams that have one dominant running back that is focus of the offense. Beyond Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans and Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings, it tends to be running back by committee on the other NFL teams. Anyway, my first draft pick was wide receiver Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans, who has led the league in receiving yardage the last two seasons.
After Andre Johnson, I took the best available running back in the second round (DeAngelo Williams). My first quarterback pick came in the third round: Phillip Rivers. This is one pick that doesn't excite me. It was between Rivers and Tony Romo, and I'm thinking perhaps I should have taken Romo. I had Rivers a few seasons ago (2008?) and he was a disappointment. I went with running back Knowshon Moreno in round four, and took another wide receiver, Chad Ochocinco, in the fifth round. In the sixth round, I drafted the second-highest ranked tight end, Antonio Gates. After about the sixth round, it's garbage time. I feel good about my choices of receivers Braylon Edwards and Dez Bryant, and think I might have gotten a steal with Colts receiver Austin Collie in the 14th and final round. I hope that I can at least use some of these receivers as trade bait if the need arises. I'm also pleased with my backup quarterback Mark Sanchez, and my backup tight end, Chris Cooley. Depending on how the season develops, both of these guys might be starters. The rest of my roster includes running back Brandon Jacobs (7th round), the Dallas Cowboys defense (12th round), and kicker Ryan Longwell (13th round).
I loaded up my roster with five wide receivers and only three running backs. We'll see if this strategy works. If one or two of my running backs get injured or have sub-par seasons, I will have to jettison one or two of these receivers in a trade--or else check the waiver wire for any unknown who, out of nowhere, starts to have a good year.
The NFL season starts tonight, and I'll post an update next week.
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