Friday, September 7, 2007

Fantasy Football

I am in 3 different leagues this year. 2 of the leagues I'm in is a keeper league where we get to choose one player to keep based on where he was drafted before. In other words, 2 yrs ago, I drafted Larry Johnson in Rd 6 for one of my leagues. As such, that's my keeper. And so I have Larry Johnson penciled in at Rd 6. Since it's only one keeper, it's not like you can maintain a dynasty but obviously, there are advantages in being able to lock up a top tier running back in later rounds. In another league where I am currently the defending champion, I drafted Willie Parker in Rd 22 (the draft got cut down to 18 rds now so I have Parker in Rd 18) so that helps... especially because this is a 12 person league starting 2RB/2WR/1 Flex (RB or WR). The third league is the bloggers league.

Well, I had one thing in mind going into this year's draft. Depth. It's always hard to stay focused on depth when it comes back around and there's a top tier receiver staring back at you. But I kept telling myself the difference between a top tier receiver and a 2nd tier receiver is minimal. And running back depth is always key in these leagues. Because inevitably, someone will get hurt... So, having said that, these are the teams that I ended up with.

Team 1 - Marc Bulger, JP Losman, Ronnie Brown, Larry Johnson, Reggie Bush, Fred Taylor, Michael Turner, Brandon Jackson, Anquan Boldin, Santonio Holmes, Jerricho Cotchery, Jacoby Jones, Todd Heap, Jason Witten, Jason Elam, Miami D

This is the league that I won 2 years ago. Clearly, I went with depth at RB at the expense of WRs. However, I am fairly happy with my personnel. I'm counting on Holmes having a pretty good year and actually for my receivers, 900yd, 8 TD campaign should be good enough to keep me in most games considering I'll be starting 3 RBs. And when another team needs a RB, I definitely have some good trade bait.

Team 2 - Matt Hasselbeck, Jake Delhomme, Alex Smith, Rudi Johnson, Willie Parker, Fred Taylor, Michael Turner, T.O., Roy Williams, Braylen Edwards, Vincent Jackson, Brandon Jones, Jacoby Jones, Vernon Davis, Matt Stover, Alex Brown, Donnie Edwards, Walt Harris

This is an IDP league which is why you see the last three names. The rules changed so the defensive players shouldn't make too much of an impact. Willie Parker was my keeper in rd 18 so that definitely helps (which is why I have Rudi). This is a 12 team league with keepers so Rudi Johnson was scored by me with #2 pick overall. Needless to say, guys like Addai, LT, Gore, Maroney, Bush, etc were all gone.

Team 3 (Bloggers league) - Tony Romo, Ben Roethlisberger, Frank Gore, Travis Henry, Cedric Benson, Adrian Peterson (rookie, not the one in Chicago), Javon Walker, Calvin Johnson, Vincent Jackson, Jacoby Jones, Todd Heap, Matt Stover, Miami D

I fucked up in this league in quite a few ways... first of all, there were only 13 rds. AND, we only start 2 RBs and 2WRs. No flex. So, you don't have to be as deep. One player doesn't sound so different? It actually makes a huge difference in terms of the depth you would need. Another mistake? Frank Gore and Travis Henry (my rds 1 and 2 picks) both have the same bye week... so I had to get 2 more decent RBs... so I ended up drafting 4 RBs in the first 5 rounds. Oh well. Not a bad team all around but I felt like it could've been better.

Can you tell I like Jacoby Jones? I don't know why. It's not that I'm high on him. He just seemed to be available when I needed a serviceable backup WR.

We'll see how it all falls out. Have a nice weekend everyone.

6 comments:

Mike Maloney said...

I'm a huge fan of Vincent Jackson. I tried to pick him up as many times as possible in my drafts this year.

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

I like V Jackson also btw but he seems to be going earlier than I expected in my drafts, indicating that the word on him seems to have gotten out.

FWIW I'm not a huge fan of your rb's or your wr's in the blogger league. I do not like Travis Henry at all this year, and I have reservations about Gore being as big as everyone says he's going to be fantasy-wise out of the blue in 2007. And while I think Javon is a good wr, the one thing your team seems to be missing is a bona fide #1 wideout. Which makes sense if you picked 4 rbs in the first 5 rounds.

We'll see what happens. Last year I dominated everybody in a 12-team league in the draft to a ridickulous degree, and then took bad beat after bad beat week after week to end up in 9th place out of 12. So you never know.

Looking forward to the rest of the season.

lj said...

hmmmm. haven't heard any trash talk from you in awhile...looks like the team name is more apt than i realized. :)

enjoy the beach! (you take the short bus?)

Matt said...

My 2 cents:

Team 1: Potential is there, although personally, depending on who was there, I would've drafted a 5th WR in place of Heap or Witten. You know my thoughts on 2 TEs, and really, it's going to be difficult playing matchups with two TEs, so one of those is probably going to ride the bench for a while. With that squad, I'd rather have the depth at WR than TE.

Team 2:

I really like this squad. Solid QB, two stud RBs (one of which is a Steeler!), two top notch WRs, and a potential stud at TE. Nice work!

Team 3:

Obviously the bye week is an issue for you; if Henry or Benson start out strong, it may be worth it to swap RBs and get a back with a different bye week, unless you start off 5-0 or something. Hopefully one of your WRs come up huge for you as well; outside of Walker, it's a group strong with potential but not much else.

GL this year man. I'll keep posting about my team this year, hope you do the same. Oh, and btw, Wayne got started by default since he was my top WR drafted and automatically started the first game unless I said otherwise. HUGE mistake avoided!

jamyhawk said...

I am wondering who in the world you root for each week? 3 teams means 3 opponents of which several of your other teams players would be on. LOL.

I would go insane trying to decide who to root for each week.

In any case, I hope you win all three. I won't even try to comment on if you did good or not, especially considering my WR heavy team.

Anonymous said...

Well written article.