The Sandlot

Tis the season, for pleasin... me.

The NFL regular season opens up tonight as the Colts take on the Saints in what should be a high scoring affair. If there's one thing that can dull the pain brought on by the end of summer it is the beginning of the NFL season. The 2007 season is shaping up to be one hell of a year. A tumultuous off season has created havoc with traditional and conventional wisdom. Teams once thought the be playoff teams or at the least contenders have been left for dead. Teams who were awful last season find themselves on the cusp of post-season births. All this and not a single game has been played.

In addition to the NFL starting tonight, so do the millions of fantasy football leagues around the globe. Not only do I have to pay attention to and cheer for the hometown team, the Bills, but I must also keep track of the 30+ guys on my multiple fantasy teams as I vie for bragging rights and hundreds of dollars. And that's the beauty of the NFL. Combine top quality pros and coaches duking it out for 16+ weeks and the industry of fantasy football and you have months of nail biting jubilation or alternately, humiliation. Try and top that college football!

In my ESPN fantasy league, we have 10 managers, each vying for the top prize of $300 or 2nd or 3rd ($150 and $50 respectively). That's $500 up for grabs for those bad at math. Months of scouting and preparation came to a head a few Mondays ago when we held our annual draft.

This is my 4th season running the ESPN league, but I've been participating in fantasy leagues since high school. I've yet to win anything. This year that's all going to change I think. Upon looking over everyone else's rosters I noticed a trend. Good to great starting rosters, little to no depth. Most teams are 2 injuries away from scrambling to find some 3r string buddies to start for x number of weeks. Then there's my team, Darrell's Subs. Each of the past 3 years I've had good drafts get ripped apart by having no less than 5 of my starters go down with injuries. With that in mind this year, I drafted like a champ I think. My starting line up is good, its probably like 3rd or 4th best, but unlike everyone else, I have many capable backups who are starters on their NFL teams. at this point I can take a couple injury hits and not see a noticeable drop in point production. The fantasy season is a long one and I drafted for the long haul.

I didn't waste the #3 overall pick on Payton Manning instead of getting a stub RB like teddy did. I didn't waste my 2nd and 3rd round picks on an injury prone QB and an unproven 2nd year QB (McNabb and Cutler courtesy of Drew). I didn't draft an injury riddled running back corp or make a #9/#10 RB a #5 pick (santos drafting Rudi J and #5 overall then getting T-hun and T Jones later on). My only questionable move was taking Addai over LJ at the #6 spot. A move that the more I think about it was the right call (though maybe I should have nabbed Alexander instead). Only time will tell.

In any event, the weeks to come will be filled with joy and heartache and I look forward to it all. Hello Fall.