Mind of Migg

I hate fantasy football.  I also love fantasy football.  It’s so addicting and absorbing that once you’re into it, there’s no turning back.  I had a good start to my fantasy football career.  I won the league title back-to-back years, and took first in the regular season the other year.  I felt unstoppable.  Once we shifted to a pay league that included keepers, I knew I would be winning championships for years to come.

Only, it didn’t happen that way.  I feel like the 90’s Buffalo Bills.  I have great regular seasons, a good team, and continually fall short of winning the title.  The problem is, no matter how much you plan, how effectively you strategize, and who your players are, there’s always a factor of complete luck.  You’re dealing with nothing but statistics.  There’s no team chemistry, there’s no on the fly game adjustment, or substitutions.  You pick the players that you believe give you the greatest statistical chance of winning and then wait and watch.

It’s practically torture.  You can build a team that appears invincible and then watch as a bunch of no names steal touchdowns from you while playoff teams rest their starters down the stretch.  That is exactly what happened to me this year.  A combination of injuries and bad luck led to yet another disappointing year.

What made it sting more is that I gave up a lot thinking I was in a great position to win it all.  I gave up future draft picks and quality keepers.  I managed to get DeAngelo Williams when I already had Ray Rice, Joseph Addai, and Marion Barber (we start 3 rb’s).  I also swung a last second deal for Chad Ochocinco for the stretch run.  But then it all went downhill.

Here’s what happened during my semi-final matchup:

-       Ochocinco and Donal Driver had very similar stats and played teams with similar pass defenses.  Following the “go with who got you there” mentality, I went with Driver.  Result?  Similar receiving yards, but Ochocinco had a touchdown and a long run.  Difference – about 7 points left on my bench.

-       DeAngelo Williams ran for only 13 yards before leaving his game with an injury.  On my bench, Marion Barber rushed for two touchdowns.  Difference – about 15 points left on my bench.

-       Kurt Warner threw a pass backwards to Anquan Boldin for a touchdown.  They would later rule it a lateral and rushing td instead of a passing td, so my opponent, who starter Warner, would lose 6 points, increasing my chances.

-       But of course, he gets two touchdowns from, of all people Fred Davis and Steve Smith.  Sure Smith had a lot of yards this season, but he only had 7 td’s, one of those being the week I played him.  And Fred Smith?!  C’mon!

In the end, after subtracting the Warner touchdown, I lost by only six points.  It was heartbreaking.  What made it worse is the fact that in the following finals week, my points total in the third place game would’ve been enough to win it all had I advanced.  But that’s the way fantasy football goes.  You can have the highest scoring players at every position, but when the end of the season is near, and teams are resting up for the playoffs, you can watch your guys go scoreless while backups like Fred Davis go wild.  Bring on next season.

Football season is finally just around the corner.  I’ve had a long, unlucky fantasy baseball season and am a bit burned out by the long haul of summer.  I’m leaning towards sitting out next baseball season and giving fantasy basketball another shot.  Nothing compares to fantasy football though.  There’s more at stake (money and trash talking), there’s more involvement by everyone in the league, and there’s more excitement.

We are in our fourth year of a 12-team football keeper league.  We have only lost two players in the four years, so everyone knows each other’s strategies and bargaining styles.  Everyone except newcomer Victor, who is destined for a number one pick next season (we draft in reverse order of standings).

This year, we decided to do a live draft.  We went all out: a conference room in Eric’s office, a draft board with player name stickers, and people flying in from out of town.  We had nine of the twelve guys in the room and the remaining three on video conference.  We had a timer projected onto a screen that had a buzzer sound when time ran out.  We had laptops out, magazines bookmarked, and people scrambling to cram some research.  We were ready for a draft.

Imran started things off with his only good pick of the day, Maurice Jones-Drew.  He had the unfortunate circumstance of trading Tony Romo and losing Tom Brady all in the span of 24 hours last season.  I found it hilarious.  He spent his season selling players for draft picks left and right.  You would think stockpiling three extra picks and making an effort to have good young keepers would really benefit him coming into this draft, but no.

There were no real surprises in the first round picks.  Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, Matt Forte all followed the first pick.  I was choosing seventh and took Larry Fitzgerald.  I know it was risky taking a WR before a RB, but his consistency makes it worth it in my eyes.  Our first real questionable pick of the day came courtesy of Ching when he took Knowshon Moreno in the 4^th round.  I’d be uncomfortable taking him in the 7^th round so I’m not sure what he was thinking.  I gave away a 5^th round pick and an 8^th round pick to Keith and Imran, so I really had to make the most of my early round choices.  I based my draft around my keepers and tried to fill my roster at each spot.  I feel like I was successful doing that, but we’ll see. Fantasy football is so completely unpredictable because you never know who’s going to get hurt for an extended period and which scrub on a last place team is going to score 3 touchdowns on you in the worst possible week.  It’s part of what makes fantasy football so much fun.

We had our first draft day trade a few rounds later.  Tridi made the call from Austin to Phil and swapped picks to move up in the 6^th round.  It was exciting to see Phil get the call one pick away as he agreed to the deal.  Tridi took Julius Jones, whom I was tempted to take.  In hindsight, I’m happy he used the trade to grab him because I would’ve regretted that pick.  There’s something about Julius Jones that always makes him more tempting than he should be on draft day.  He always let’s you down.

Tridi made a similar deal with Keith in the 12^th round.  It’s such a crapshoot in those later rounds as everyone around the table asks, “who’s that?” with each pick, so I’m not really sure what the value was in that.  But trades are always fun and I’m jealous I didn’t do it.  After those deals, it came down to IDP (Individual Defensive Player) picks and kickers.  By this point, James was choosing players based on funny sounding names (Tapp, Atari Bigby), which always seems to work out for him.  And by always seems to work out for him, I don’t mean it makes his squad better; he’s never made the playoffs.  I mean he consistently has the best-named players on his roster year in and year out.  You have to take successes where you can.

I feel pretty confident about my draft results, but then again, I always do.  I’m surprised players like Le’Ron McClain and Donald Driver slipped to me in the 9^th and 13^th rounds.  I’m not saying they’re fantasy all-stars, but the value from the rounds is potentially high.  I’m also happy with my team defense selections and defensive players.  I resisted the temptation to reach for “sleepers” and focused on value as much as possible in the later rounds.  All in all, I’d rate my draft third behind Phil and Eric.  I really like the total team they were able to put together considering they both drafted towards the end.  I liked Phil getting Marques Colston in the 3^rd round, followed by Jason Witten.  I liked some of Eric’s later picks: getting Hines Ward late and investing in Shonn Greene and Hakeem Nicks.

As for worst drafts, I think Ching hands down had the worst pick of the draft: Matt Leinart in the 14^th round.  I’d put two kickers on my roster before drafting Leinart.  He’s not even guaranteed a backup position yet.  Overall, I think Imran had the worst draft, which is impressive considering he had the top pick.  In his first six picks he took a guy everyone thought retired (Derrick Mason), a guy everyone thinks should retire (Willie Parker), and a tight end in the 4^th round that I would bet money doesn’t outperform the tight end I took in the 11^th.  That would be bad enough, but he followed those picks up with more trouble.  He took the first team defense (never something to brag about) and then three straight IDP players, essentially saying, “no guys, I am not interested in looking for any sleeper players or keepers for next year.  You all go ahead.”  In all fairness, he did sneak in a few offensive players with the picks he had traded for, but then he took more IDP players and a kicker.  The best thing though, was his selection of JaMarcus Russell, which would’ve won worst pick of the draft if not for Ching.

It was a lot of fun doing the draft in person and I hope we make it a habit.  I’m looking forward to making waiver wire moves before injured players are done being carried off the field, questionable deals, and trading more draft picks.  Let the 2009 Fantasy Football season begin!