Effor.com

As I admitted in an earlier post, I’m now hooked on fantasy football.  Damn near every night I find myself searching the web to see who has updated player rankings and average draft positions - never mind that it’s way to early to do any of it, so it’s basically meaningless right now.

It’s too early because no one has even played a preseason game yet.  There’s no way to know who will be the starting running back for Team A or who will be the number one receiver for Team B.  But I still can’t resist putting together my draft cheat sheet.  And tweaking it.  Almost daily.

I know it’ll be totally re-done by the time draft day in my league rolls around, but I keep talking to myself, saying things like “if the draft were held today, I’d go with…” 

Anyway, I ran across this article on NFL.com tonight.  It talks about the various draft strategies that can be used during your fantasy draft, and the pros and cons of each of them.

Last year I did a classic RB, RB, WR, WR draft, and it worked out fairly well.  I was picking 6th in a 12 team league, and I got Reggie Bush in round 1, Ronnie Brown in #2, Reggie Wayne #3, and Randy Moss #4.  I’m in a PPR league, so Bush and Brown both had decent numbers (until Brown got hurt), but I rode Moss and Wayne to the championship.

I doubt that I’ll be able to get Moss in the 4th round this year, so I probably need to change my strategy.  I don’t know what I’ll do yet - I change my mind damn near every night - but I’m thinking about something like RB, WR, RB, WR this year.

There’s no way I can see taking a WR or QB in the first round.  Starting RB’s that aren’t platooned are too rare, and if I have a chance for a stud RB in the first round, I gotta grab one. 

I’d love to take another RB in round 2, but I think the consistent studs will probably be gone by then.  So I’m seriously considering taking a WR in round 2.  I could probably get someone like Wayne, TO, Edwards or Johnson (either Andre or Chad) and there should still be plenty of platooned RB’s available in round 3.

On the other hand, I could get a top tier QB or TE in round 3, and wait until 4 to get a platooned RB - but the WR pool is getting thinner by the 5th round, so I’d be really weak at that position.  Crap, I have no clue what I’ll do.

Anyway, I love the advice at the end of the NFL.com article above.  They say And finally, the bottom line about kickers and defense: Use anything but your last pick on a kicker and you deserve to finish in last place. The only defense even partially worth investing a mid-round pick on would be the Vikings. Otherwise that should be your second-to-last pick.

Last year was my first playing fantasy football, and I picked the Bears DST in round 5.  Since I got lucky with Moss in round 4, I still did ok, but taking a defense - any defense - in round 5 was (and is) really dumb.  Don’t do it.  Ever.

Hopefully I’ll find a good sleeper or two in the later rounds to make up for the inevitable busts and injuries that will happen during the year.  I have some ideas on QB’s and WR’s who I think may break out this year - and hopefully they’ll be available in the mid to late rounds. 

If I get lucky and 1) Get them in later rounds; 2) They actually break out and produce;  I could stash a great stock of RB’s and TE’s in the earlier rounds…. 

But that’s going by the rankings and ADP today…. Which are meaningless….  So I’m right back where I started….  Damn Fantasy Football!   I wish the season was starting tomorrow!

Ok, I’ve got the bug.  I got it from a coworker when he invited me to join a fantasy football league late last summer.  I’d never played before, and to be honest, I always thought it was a bit silly.

How times change!

I got lucky with a few picks in our draft last year, did a lot of homework before each game, and got really lucky during the year a few times - like the Monday Night game when Green bay was playing Denver.   Here’s the story….

I had Greg Jennings, the guy I was playing had Bret Favre, and I was up by one point when the game went into overtime.  I really didn’t care who won the game, I wanted to beat my opponent!  I was hoping that Denver would win the toss and score, because then I’d win.  But nooooo, Green Bay wins the toss and Favre drops back to pass on the first play of OT…..

I was sunk.  I’d lose if Favre completed one or two passes for just a few yards.  I was chatting via IM with another team owner in our league and all I could think of to type was “repeat after me - throw it to jennings!” because that was the only possible way I could win.  (We have a PPR league, where the receiver gets a point for every catch, a point for every 10 yards he gains, and 6 points for a TD.  The quarterback only gets a point for every 20 passing yards and 4 points per TD.)

So just after I type the “throw it to jennings” comment on IM, Favre throws a long (about 80 yards) TD pass to Jennings.   Favre (and my opponent that week) got 8 points (4 for the yardage and 4 for the TD), while me and Jennings got 14 points (8 for the yardage and 6 for the TD) so I win “easily” by 7 points….

If I wasn’t hooked before, I was as of that week!

I think it’s the way that each week is so unpredictable.  I was in a “Pick ‘em” league a couple of years ago, and it proved fairly easy to pick a majority of the NFL teams that would win each week.  I think I had a win ratio of about 80% - which was good enough to win that league that year.

But in Fantasy Football, in any given week, some no name player (like Greg Jennings at the time) could come up big for you. 

I drafted Jason Whitten (a TE with the Cowboys) as a backup for my “main” TE Kellen Winslow in the 9th round of our draft last year!  He ended up being the top TE in our FFL, but there wasn’t much (ie any) skill involved in drafting him….  I just needed someone to play during Winslow’s bye week.  Lucky pick, ’cause I don’t think I’d ever heard of him. 

But I ended up putting him into my starting lineup much of the year because Winslow was on the injury report much of the year - and I refuse to put a player into my lineup that’s listed as probable or doubtful - no matter how often they’ve played with the same status in the past.  So Whitten started for me most weeks, and he helped me win most weeks.

To make a long story even longer, I somehow managed to win our league championship last year, going 13 and 1.  I’m definitely hooked now - take a look at the trophy on my mantle!

With that as a background - is it too early to start ranking players in order to prepare for our draft in a few months? 

I’m asking because I’ve already started my cheat sheets, I’ve already read a bunch of projected stats on other sites, and I can’t wait until draft day! 

Crap - I think that means I’m hooked….

gk