2008 - Fantasy Football Draft review

As I previously mentioned in the last two 7 things are better than 10 columns, I attended fantasy football drafts the last two Saturday nights. I’m not going to bore you with the details of the drafts, no round by round analysis, but hey, I’m bored at work and feel like wasting my time banging out a column. On with the show:

- Is it just me, or has the NFL’s emphasis on Parody lead to more teams who you just don’t want to touch?

This was actually a topic of conversation I had with a fellow drafter as we drove the last hour together to the first draft site, and was brought up after the 2nd draft. It seems that every year there are more and more teams that I have so many questions about that I don’t even want one of their players on my squad. Think about it, do you feel that any of these teams will be competitive enough on offense to take any of their players before the last couple rounds:

Miami
NY Jets
Kansas City
Oakland (sorry Nation)
Tennessee
San Francisco
Atlanta
Chicago
Carolina

Sure most of the teams listed above have a player or two highly ranked on most draft boards, but truthfully do you think Larry Johnson will A. Stay Healthy, and B. Face less than 8 in the box at any time? That didn’t stop players from these teams from getting selected early and often. Vince Young was a keeper in one league, are you kidding me, has he gotten moved to RB? Darren McFadden was selected 1st round in the same, maybe Adrian Peterson syndrome, because he looks like Reggie Bush part 2 to me.

I remember having two or three teams that I wanted nothing to do with in the past, but this season is the worst I can remember. This year about a quarter of the teams in the NFL as so pathetic, or experiencing so much upheaval that I have no desire to have any of their players on my team. In other words, this has become like baseball, where a good portion of the teams are out of it before the season starts, and that sucks.

- The top of the draft is more of a crapshoot this year than any other year I can remember.

My thoughts on this may be clouded due to our league rules, But in our keeper league top 4 available players looked like this:

L. Tomlinson
T. Brady
P. Manning
S. Jackson

I’ve written here about how I believe that the wheels are about to fall off of Tomlinson. Brady has not played in a preseason game yet, and there are injury rumors. As for Pey-Pey, he just went under the knife, and the team is being very tight lipped about his availability. Steven Jackson went through a protracted hold out, and as a former owner of Jackson, I know full well how he performed last year after missing the preseason.

But it goes further than that. Of the other players ranked in the top 10 most places do you really feel good about Randy Moss (tied to Brady’s health, injury history and his head problems), Adrian Peterson (huge injury red flag), T.O. (Dallas is about to implode, IMO)? Of the top 10, I am down to 3 guys I feel confidant will live up to that billing. I am sure that I am wrong about 3-4 of these guys, but which ones?

- Don’t show up to the draft at your own risk

We only have 10 teams in the 1st league to draft. Its cool since most of us have known each other for years, it makes the hazing all the more fun. But the most brutal hazing may have been done by those selected by the 2 absent owner to pick their team for them. When your QB’s look like this (we start 2, yeah we are wild and crazy) E. Manning, Leinart and Edwards, or Anderson (keeper) Hasselbeck and Matt Ryan, you have just been royally fucked over by your “friend”. The best part of it, those who were there selecting made no secret that they didn’t give a fuck. (Although one claimed that the absent owner was going to be happy with Matt Ryan, (Boston sports homerism knows no bounds).

We also had two no-shows for the 2nd draft, but these guys were much more civil about it. You know what I blame it on, the Mid-west mentality. These guys just aren’t as cutthroat around here. I guess Pittsburgh is just a nicer place than Boston.

- The draft 2 RB’s 1st strategy may be dead (at least for this year)

I have 10 RB’s listed in my top 20 players, I have already expressed my concerns with a number of them, and while most of those I haven’t mentioned I feel pretty good about, Frank Gore and the San Fran mess is on that list. After that you are seriously reaching to draft any of these guys in the 1st two rounds. Maroney, went down that road last season, Larry Johnson, not with a 10 foot pole, Ronnie Brown, will he even start in Miami? But all of these guys will go in the 1st two rounds in most drafts, just not to me. When I drafted RB’s in the 1st two rounds I got Lynch and Jones-Drew, I was drafting 11th, don’t you wish you were as smart as me.

- If your keepers include Crumpler and Nick Folk (he is a kicker, wouldn’t want you to have to look it up).

Thanks for your donation.

- Parody has struck the TE position

This may be more due to Gates and Gonzalez falling back to the pack, but in my 1st draft 11 TE’s were selected, and there are still 5 out there that I would feel good about starting on my squad. To the point that now I regret taking one as early as I did, since I could have grabbed one in the last couple rounds, when you should be selecting other positions where there is little to no drop off, like Kicker and Defense.

I took this advise to heart in the 2nd draft, and was the last person to select a TE, getting Zach Miller in the 12th round, I’m willing to put money on Miller being a top 10 TE this season, and there are still two players out there I think will put up better numbers than 7 of the TE’s selected in that league.

- If you draft Houshmandzadeh and Jerome Harrison as the 12th & 13th Pick

Thanks for the donation. I mean…WOW, were you trying to hide the fact that you made a poor pick in Housh, by making an unfathomable pick in Harrison, I had to look up who the hell he was, and this was the 1st pick of the 2nd round. Usually I go 15 rounds without having to ask who someone is, or what team they play for.

Unfortunately that is it for live drafts for me this year, I have a couple online drafts to take part in, but those just aren’t as much fun, and I honestly have much less interest in those leagues as there is no money on the line. I’d give you a list of players that I think should have been drafted, and I am considering picking up off the waiver wire, but some guys in these leagues read this, I’m not helping them out.

Fantasy Bullshit wrap-up

I'm not going to lie, reading about other people's fantasy football is boring as fuck. I could give two shits about your fantasy team in some league I’m not involved in. So I don’t blame you if you just skip over this item, and read my bitching about some other subject. But, since I committed to giving props on this blog to the winner of one league, I’ll keep my word and post a few lines here.

You may remember from the last 7 things column before I took a holiday break that I told you not to fuck with the Thomlinson/ Brady combo. Well going into the finals in 2 of my leagues I was on the wrong side of this combo in 1 and had them starting for me in the other. So I figured at worst I’d be winning 1 of the 2.

Well I took it in the ass in both leagues.

In the money league, I was on the wrong side of the combo. So I was rooting for both players to shit the bed so that I could take home the big payday. Well that didn’t happen as both of them performed right about at their average. So my opponent, we’ll call him lucky fuck, immediately had a huge advantage.

Now this didn’t shock me, and I still felt that I had a puncher’s chance to pull off the win, as I had defeated Lucky Fuck and his deadly combo just a couple of weeks prior to clinch my playoff spot. But no, not only did lucky fuck have the deadly combo performing at their standard level, but he also had Brandon Jacobs and Aaron Stecker put up career days (OK, Stecker was actually better the previous week, but who the hell tracks Aaron Stecker).

So while Lucky Fuck was having his players post huge numbers, my team decided to take an unscheduled bye week. Carson Palmer decided that he already put up enough stats for the year against Cleveland in week 2. Brett Favre decided to have one of those days where he kills his own D by tossing up picks for TD’s. But the one that really pissed me off was Ron Dayne. Now you may be asking yourself, what kind of idiot starts Ron Dayne. Well the Texans had been starting him with success for the previous few weeks. But they gave him the day off against Indy. Then he came back the following week with nothing on the line to put up 17 on a tough Jacksonville run D.

So as I’m sure you figured out by now, Lucky Fuck got the big win. Congrats Lucky Fuck, too bad you can’t keep Brady and Thomlinson next year and you gave up your #2 pick next year for LT, have fun in the basement next year. (No, I’m not bitter).

But even more frustrating was my no-money just for fun league. Here I was the proud owner of the deadly combo. Not only that but I had Maurice Jones-Drew, Jericho Cotchery and the Redskins D putting up huge points for me in what should have been a blowout. But I made a big mistake, what should have been my #2 running back, M. Lynch, and my #2 receiver, D. Bowe, sat on my bench. While Lucky Fuck #2 squeaked out a win riding huge days by Kurt Warner, Brandon Jacobs, Steven Jackson, Braylon Edwards and the Seahawks D.

So I guess the moral of my tale of woe is don’t fuck with the Thomlinson/Brady combo, unless you have Kurt Warner, since god loves him some Kurt Warner.