It’s Fantasy Football Season: First League Draft Recap

There are only a handful of things that are more fun for me than a live fantasy sports draft. I purposely play in as many leagues as possible just for the drafts. Also, I’m pretty good at fantasy sports (football, baseball, basketball, golf), winning multiple championships in my career.

Sunday, August 1 marked the kickoff for my Fantasy Football season. This league, compiled of twitter friends, has twelve teams participating. In a random drawing for draft positioning, I earned pick eleven of twelve. With that, I will have pick 14, meaning I should get two top tier players.

Here’s my in depth recap of this leagues draft:

5:59 – one minute before we begin the draft. I am at pick eleven, which means I will have some time before the draft. All twelve owners are present in the chat room, eliminating anyone from complaining about auto-picking. Hope the internet connection holds up!

6:00 – And we’re off! First pick made: Chris Johnson. Second: AP. No surprises yet.

6:05 – Already time for me to pick. All the top ten pre-ranked players go almost in order. I grab Steven Jackson at pick eleven, and Larry Fitzgerald at pick fourteen. I’m satisfied with those two. It will be very interesting who is available in the late 3rd and early 4th round. I wish more people were smack-talking.

6:09 – This draft is moving way too quickly. People are not using their full 1:30 time limit. We are already at pick 22.

6:13 – Surprised that at pick 28, Reggie Wayne is still available. Is there something wrong with him?

6:17 – a lot of my sleepers are already gone. Interested to see how it plays out for them. Three players ranked ahead of my pick remain. One being Knowshon Moreno, who just was injured in camp.

6:19 – My 3rd round pick: Sidney Rice. I think I took him a little too high. I need another RB. 4th round pick: Brett Favre. This makes it official that Favre is coming back… to the ‘Fantasy Guru’s’! It will be feast or famine with the Favre-Rice combo.

6:33 – Teams are taking their time more in picking. the 5th and 6th rounds are where you start using your knowledge to get the hidden gems. My 5th round pick: Brandon Jacobs; 6th round pick: Marion Barber. I now have three RB’s and feeling pretty good about that. Jacobs will be the wild-card.

6:51: Pace has slowed even more. I’m happy with my 7th round pick of Tony Gonzalez and 8th round pick of Clinton Portis. He’s a sleeper, and possibly could have grabbed him later. I will wait to get a kicker and defense with my last two picks.

7:03 – Tough to choose who I want at this point. Most of my people I wanted are gone. Round 9 pick: Fred Jackson; round 10: Jericho Cotchery. In other news, I’m watching the catfight on Big Brother between Kristin and Rachel. Yes, it’s a secret goal of mine to be on this show someday.

7:16 – Very happy with my 11th and 12th round picks: Malcom Floyd and Tim Hightower. We’re getting close to kicker and defense time!

7:29 – At this point, you’re looking at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th string guys. Round 13: Roy Williams; Round 14: Willis McGahee. I need one of my late picks to become an impact player.

7:39 – I finally break down and grab a kicker: Dan Carpenter, in round 15. Round 16 gives me the New England Patriots defense.

7:50 – pick 203, one away from Mr. Irrelevant. I guess that makes my pick, Jeremy Shockey, the last relevant player. Yes, I let the timer go and Shockey was auto-picked for me.

Overall, I am very happy with my team. I would consider me taking Favre a risk if I did not have insider information about Favre coming back. But, I do 🙂 I am looking forward to a fun season in this league. I have one more draft later this month. I’ll use the blog to chronicle my successes this season. I hope you enjoy the ride!

~J

UFC 94, Super Bowl XVIII, biting through bones, the usual weekend

This weekend brought UFC 94 – Penn/St. Pierre and the final NFL game of the 2008 season, Super Bowl XVIII pitting the Arizona Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers.

Sunday led me to a place in Maple Grove, MN called ‘Curry Up’, an Indian food establishment.  Suggested by my friend Mike, I went in there with an open mind.  With their buffet reasonably priced, I was starting to gain excitement in my taking a chance on something different.  When I think buffet, I think chinese buffets, or an Old Country Buffet type of place that has a wide selection of various foods.  This buffet had six items to choose from, along with a very weak salad bar.  Despite the small selection, I kept the positive attitude, the open mind as it were while scooping up my rice, ‘peas and cheese’, and some chicken thing.  Then things went the wrong direction.

I sit down with Mike (not eating), we look at the plate that I had created, and had that unspoken understanding that this was not going to end well.  I mixed the rice and ‘peas and cheese’ which was edible, above average.  Then came the chicken thing: red on the outside, white on the inside.  It was a bit dry, and crunchy for some reason.  Bite one was interesting.  Bite two, something else was crunchy; a bone.  Not thinking there would be bones in my chicken, I bit into it with normal force, which ended up strong enough to have me bite through the bone.  I did not know that was possible for a human to bite through a bone.  Maybe I am uneducated in bone consumption.   Regardless of that, Mike and I left immediately.  That is what you get for taking a chance on your lunch!

The rest of the day was spent at home, away from everyone except for the roommate.  I had very little interest in the acutal Super Bowl game for the first time in my adult life.  I held out hope that the commercials would satisfy me; that was dumb of me.

The game turned out to be a classic ending in what I consider a huge controversy.  No one else is picking up on this.  The game winning catch by Santonio Holmes should not have counted.  There was a question of whether or not Holmes got both feet down in bounds.  No question does he get his left foot in; no question does he NOT get his right foot in.  Despite my instant thoughts on that play, AND a review of the play, the referees managed to screw up that call, which played a huge role in the Cardinals losing.   I will gladly debate this play with anyone.  It was such a shame for the game to be partially determined by that play, along with the ‘fumble’ at the end of the game by Kurt Warner.  I felt his arm was moving forward, which would result in an incomplete pass.  Again, what was called versus what should have been called are two different things.  This may have been the most poorly refereed Super Bowl in recent memory, with the referees seeming to call in favor of the Steelers (Arizona has 11 penalties for 106 yards, Pittsburgh had 7 for 56).  Ken Wisenhunt had to challenge two plays that were called in favor of the Steelers.  Lucky for him, he won both challenges, one nullifying a touchdown.

The big difference, other than the biased officiating, was hte big turnover.  James Harrison intercepted Warner on the goal line before halftime and ran it for a record setting 100 yard touchdown, longest in Super Bowl history.  Those seven points proved pivotal in the end.

Overall, it was a very good game with the drama that Super Bowls have lacked in the past.

A quick note about UFC 94: Georges St. Pierre is amazing.  His dismantling of B.J. Penn was something to be in awe of.  to get a fighter like Penn to have his corner not let him go out for the fifth round says something about the overall dominance of St. Pierre.  One has to wonder if he may choose to move up a weightclass or two.  He is only 5’10” and 170, but ripped beyone belief.  He is definitely worth the price of admission.

A bunch of friends and myself went to Hooters in Block E to watch the event.  If the Penn/St. Pierre fight wasn’t so jam packed, the event would have sucked overall.  There was a sweet knockout in the Machida/Silva fight, the rest of the televised bouts were split decisions and lacking high octane action.  Here is a recap of the event from espn.com

That was the weekend, another success.  Here’s to the new week; oh what will you bring to me, what will I bring to you?

~J

twitter: @jasondouglas