Here is how I faired in fantasy football this year.
1. JDPA 2008 – This was the largest league I was in, 14 teams. We had a draft day so you pick your own players. I was lucky enough to get the second pick. You play against one team every week and the team with the most points gets the win. Even though I ended the year with the most points; 102 points more than the second place point team I spent most of the year between 6th and 4th place. Every time a team played me they ended up having their best week ever and so while I was consistently scoring high points, I kept loosing. I just barely made the playoffs. I got the last seed. However, the playoffs were good for me and I ended up winning – I’m #1! I really rode San Diego in this league. I had Philip Rivers and LaDanian Tomlinson. Tomlinson was killing me the first half of the year, but he was what won me the playoffs so I can’t complain. My other running back was DeAngelo Williams – very strong player. My stand out WR were Derrick Manson and Steve Smith.
2. JDPA 2008-2009 – 8 teams. I also ended the year with the most points in this league – 60 more than second, but it seemed everyone had their best week whenever they played me. Most of the people in this league work under me so they all loved that I had the most points but still couldn't win. I barely made the play offs and the play offs went like the rest of the year; I ended in 4th place. Kurt Warner (QB from AR), Jason Witten.(TE from Dallas), Gore (RB from FS), and Calvin Johnson (WR from Detroit) got me consistent points and carried me most of the year. All solid scorers and all people I picked up in later in the rounds. I was the first person to pick up a TE, I wanted to make sure I got Witten on at least one of my teams. What really helped him in this league is that picked up a lot of running backs throughout the year – Moore (Pit), Morris (NE), Thomas (NE).
3. The League (another work league – it was put together at the last minute and they were begging for people to join) – it 6 teams. I was at the bottom – very last place - the entire first half of the year, but I started coming alive late in the year and made the play offs and ended in 4th place. I picked Tom Brady with my first pick and that killed me. Especially since someone else beat me to the bunch in picking up Cassle. I also had too many Indy players – Peyton Manning, Joseph Addai. Manning was so up and down the first half of the year, he was killing me. I also had Randy Moss and after Brady went down, it took a while for Cassel to figure out he should throw him ball. He eventually ended up with 11 TD’s so I can’t complain touch, he is the one who helped me make the push to the play offs the last half of the year.
4. The last league I was in wss the Witteh Family, however, I was the only Witten in this league. This is the one Aaron and Rachel tried to get everyone to join in but in the usual Witten style everyone tried to join too late. In this league there is a salary cap so you can change your players every week, you just have to stay under the cap. You don’t play teams head to head, it is purely based on points and of course this is the team that I did the worst one in terms of points. This was by far my worse performance. Rachel kicked my but. I kept zigging when I should have zagged. I figured Cassel was going to be a good replacement for Brady; after all, NE is a great team and you could pick Cassel up for very little money. So I played him and he really sucked his first few games so I dropped him right when he started kicking some serious butt. Three games in a row. So I picked him back up again, only to have him throw more interceptions than TD’s. I dropped him again when he started playing good again. Since I had LaDanian Tomlinson in one of my other leagues I thought I would go with him here also. For you football fans, you all know Tomlinson had a very bad performance the first half of the year. So I spent a lot of money for someone not scoring very many points. So of course about the same time I gave up on him is when he finally started playing good.
One thing I learned – four fantasy teams is too many. It was way to hard to remember who was one my team and worst of all every single week I would be playing a few players on my team in one league but also be playing against those same exact players in another league because they were on my opponents team. Without any local team to root for, fantasy football makes football fun to watch again, but it is hard to root for and against the same players.
Next year, we got to get the Witten league organized early to get more teams. I think there are a few more football fans than just Aaron, Rachel and I.
