Well I did it. I finally made it back to the promised land of fantasy
football champion (in one league at least). All told this year I participated
in 4 leagues, 3 for money, 1 for no money, spending $250. I made the playoffs
in 3 of the leagues; 2 money and 1 no money. In my work league where I was the
defending champ, I had my worst record of 3-10. I lost in the first round of
the playoffs in the Lockport
league and in the second round of the online no-money league. I did however,
win the league that I run, earning me $600, so all told it was a good year.
This marks the second time I've won my league, and 3rd league championship
overall in the past 5 years. I've mentioned before some of the strategies I try
to employ when drafting which have led to my success. In addition to those, you
do need to catch some lucky breaks and have your fellow manager’s fall into
some bad luck. This season, because of the off season lock-out, the injury bug
hit teams fast and furious. Projected studs like Jamaal Charles went down for
the count in the first week and countless others dropped like flies all season
long. Many other big names like Andre Johnson were in and out of the line-ups
all season due to nagging non-season ending injuries. Not one single owner was
left unfazed by a critical injury. The difference between the good and bad
managers is proper contingency planning and dumb luck.
I'm going to break this down into multiple parts. Part 1 here consisting of
a brief overview and in-depth analysis of my roster by position group immediately
post-draft as well as roster moves I made during the season via free agency and
trades. Part 2 will be a recap of the entire draft itself and part 3 will cover
the regular season and playoffs.
Part 1
In years past, RB was the most important position on your fantasy team.
Landing a stud RB was a crucial component in trying to win it all. If you could
somehow land two you were almost assured victory. Times however have changed.
RB is still important, but as I will demonstrate, you don't need any studs to
win a title, just some consistent guys who won't put up goose-eggs.
I had Chis Johnson as my keeper from last year. I then drafted Felix Jones,
Daniel Thomas, Fred Jackson, LT and CJ Spiller. That's 1 stud, 2 starters, a
rookie who was projected to start and essentially 2 handcuffs to starters. Not
too bad a group at the onset of the year. My projected starters for week 1 were
going to be Johnson and Jones. As it turned out Chris Johnson sucked for the
first 9 weeks of the season, and I actually traded him (plus Boldin) in week 8
for Jon Stewart, Steve Smith and 2 draft picks. I had to start Johnson every
week until then though because he's a premier guy and you should never really
bench your studs. Jones and Thomas both had slow starts whereas Fred Jackson
exploded right out of the gate, forcing me to play him until his season ending
injury in week 11. Thomas missed time due to injury had a couple good games
then lost his job to Reggie Bush and never got it back. Jones also got hurt and
missed weeks 7-10, and also lost his job. Fortunately for me, his replacement,
DeMarco Murray, got hurt right before fantasy playoffs began, making Jones
relevant again. CJ Spiller also turned in some fine outings after Fred Jackson went
down. My trade pick up Jon Stewart was good enough to keep the ship afloat as
my other backs struggled while I dealt with various injuries. Also a rare event
happened; a late season waiver RB gem emerged on the Lions, Kevin Smith. Though
he missed a couple games due to injury he put up a lot of points when I had no
one else to turn to, especially in the fantasy playoffs. Essentially, I was
able to mix and match some guys together for the entire season that did just
enough to help me out.
Now RB is just one of 6 positions and 3 roster spots you have to worry
about. For all the troubles my RB gave me over the season, I had a clear
advantage at a couple other positions; QB, TE, WR and D/ST.
At QB I have Aaron Rodgers, who I actually never drafted. The first season
we moved to a keeper league I actually got Rodgers in a trade. I offered a guy
(who actually won the league that year) Kyle Orton and Brandon Lloyd for
Rodgers and he took it. He needed WR help bad at the point and Lloyd ended up
being the #1 WR in fantasy that season. Orton wasn’t playing bad but he’s a
downgrade over Rodgers for sure. So now I have Rodgers, who is one of my
keepers. He sits so far above all the other QB's that he gives me a minimum 5
point advantage every week. Having a guy on your team who you never have to
worry about getting hurt or having a bad game makes your job as a manager that
much easier. . You can also ask the guys who have Drew Brees and Tom Brady. As
my bye week fill-in, I took Joe Flacco, a fairly safe guy with some nice upside
who realistically is only going to see my line-up one week of the year.
At TE I lucked out. Some of the pre-season favorites like Jeramichael
Finley, Antonio Gates, Dallas Clark, Vernon Davis and Jason Witten all got
snatched up pretty early in our draft, between rounds 3 and 4 primarily. TE has
become a fairly deep position in the past few years so I wasn't overly
concerned when I didn't land one of those top 5-6 guys. I took a shot on a guy
who was still relatively unknown but had a lot of pre-season buzz, Jimmy Graham
from the Saints. He and Gronkowski from the Pats ended up being two of the
biggest steals in the draft as they put up numbers far above all the other TE
in the league (finishing #1 and #2 respectively) and a good chunk of WR as
well. Just like having that elite QB you never worry about, so it goes with an
elite TE. You start him every week except his bye week. I did draft a second
TE, 2nd year man Tony Moeaki from the chiefs but he was lost for the season in
KC's final preseason game. I foolishly panicked and grabbed a guy off the
waiver wire, Todd Heap, in what ended up amounting to nothing more than a
squandered acquisition. Later in the year I traded LT to another manager for
Greg Olsen for my bye-week need.
Now we come to WR, which is the hardest position to gauge because their
production depends on many factors outside their control, namely, who's
throwing them the ball. It’s easy to whiff on a WR and every year there’s 4 or
5 guys who go undrafted then explode out of no where and end up being waiver
wire adds. WR is always the deepest position so you can always get quality guys
here late in drafts and even on the waiver wire. Here again, I ran into a
little luck. As it stands right now, I have 3 of the top 5 WR on my roster, as
well as 6 of the top 25 guys. Now in a league with 10 guys, where you can start
2 or 3 WR, to end up with 3 top 5 guys is largely unheard of and it all started
with a gamble. Going into the draft I held the 3rd pick and already had a QB
and RB as my keepers. WR was the logical choice for my first pick as there
would be potentially be several stud guys available, depending how the 2 guys
before me picked. As it turns out, one took an RB and the other a QB, leaving
me my choice of the best WR that were available to draft. It really boiled down
to two players; Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald. Both players have immense
talent but both with big question marks; Johnson with his ability to stay
healthy and Fitz with his QB situation. In the end I went with Johnson, who was
hobbled by an ankle sprain for a few weeks but finished as the #1 WR in fantasy
(Fitz finished in the top ten but was 70 points behind Johnson or 5.5 points a
week less). I also drafted the following: Dez Bryant, Boldin, Percy Harvin,
Lance Moore, Malcolm Floyd and Seahawk Mike Williams. Bryant turned out to be a
top 20 guy as did Harvin. I traded Boldin (who finished #29) in the CJ deal and
the rest were more back up depth players. As I said I got Steve Smith in a
trade and he ended up as the #3 guy and coming in at #4 is Victor Cruz, a waiver
pickup that no one had even heard of before the season began. A little luck and
some good timing is all that separates fortune from disaster. I did also use a
waiver move on Erik Decker, who had a few good games and landed at #27.
As far as D/ST goes, they always end up being the biggest point earners in
our league due to the scoring set up yet typically no one drafts them till
late. Reason being it’s hard to project year to year which team will actually
be good. Mo jumped on the Steelers D early in like round 5 and they finished as
the 9th ranked squad. Conversely, the #1 ranked D, the 49ers, were selected
until much later, probably around round 10 or later. There’s just no way to
justify taking a D in the early to mid rounds. I ended up taking the Jets D in
round 11, after some other D's like the Steelers and Eagles were off the board
and they finish as the #2 ranked squad. Its better to wait on your D and snatch
up more RB and WR depth as you can always find a top 10 D on the waiver wire at
nearly any point in the season.
The K spot is the last spot to be covered because it’s the least valuable
spot, even if it can win or cost you a week. Kickers are a dime a dozen and
even more fluky to predict than D/ST and I never take one until the final
round. As evident by Mo, who took consensus #1 K Nate Kaeding in round 13, only
to watch him go on IR for the year. I drafted Matt Bryant, who finished #11 and
my waiver bye week fill in guy Nick Novak finished #13. David Akers, who
finished as the #1 K, was a waiver add by Tay
in October. There’s just no way to know so it’s best to just flip a coin on a K
and again, look for sleeper guys who will bust out.
I made 2 trades this year. I traded LT and received Greg Olsen which worked out great for me. Olsen ended up having a good game during Grahams bye week and LT ended up getting hurt and missing almost the rest of the season. The other trade was the blockbuster deal of the year where I shipped off the under-performing Chris Johnson and Anquan Boldin in exchange for Steve Smith, Jon Stewart and 9th and 15th round draft picks. I would also say this deal worked out in my favor. Boldin had a solid start to the year but cooled down substantially with the emergence of other WR on the Ravens. Chris Johnson did end up stringing 3-4 nice games together toward the end of the fantasy regular season but then disappeared again during the playoffs. I did lose a keeper in the deal though and didn't get one in return. As noted, Steve Smith finished #3 and Stewart helped enough to let me win it all. Plus, I get two extra picks in next years draft, even if they are late round ones. But as you'll see in part two, there's always plenty of late round talent waiting to be taken.
In addition to trades, my league also allows for 5 free agent pick-ups of players who went undrafted. As noted, my first grab of Todd Heap ended up being a total bust. My second pick-up was used on a back-up K, so no problems there. The 3rd I used on WR Eric Decker, which turned out OK as I started him a couple times and he produced well enough. Pick-up 4 was Victor Cruz, which is what we like to call a home run as he finished #4 for WR. My last move was for Kevin Smith, who exploded for a 200+ yard game just before Thanksgiving. I would also call this a home run because he shored up my RB situation after I lost Fred Jackson late and Felix Jones was confined to the Cowboys bench.
If you're still with me after all that, part 2 is coming up, round by round draft recap.
