For those of you who don't know what fantasy sports are, let me tell you that you're missing out on the greatest thing since sliced bread. No joke, fantasy sports makes watching sports about a bagillion times more fun. If you don't like sports in general, well then...you're just dumb haha. The concept of fantasy sports is really simple. You pick real players to make up your fantasy team and if they perform well in real life, your fantasy team scores a lot of points. So along with your normal team you root for, you can also follow your fantasy players and root them on too! Basically, every game becomes exciting because you're gonna have players from all around the league.
Now I'll speak for all fantasy sports players when I say Fantasy Football is the best to play. It's the easiest to follow and by far the most popular. The reason it is the game of choice for many people is because, compared to the other major sports like basketball or baseball, football has very clear cut statistics and the games only happen once a week. There are basically two stats you look for in football - yards and touchdowns. Very simple and easy to track. Plus with games only coming on Sunday and Monday, you have an entire week to set up your roster. Don't get me started on how tedious it is to keep up a basketball or baseball lineup with games playing almost everyday! I've played Fantasy Basketball a handful of times and what happens for me is it gets too hard to keep updating your lineup and you just say screw it halfway through the season and stop paying attention. In Fantasy Football on the other hand, even if you do bad during the first part of the season, you can make trades or pick up some backup players and get your season back on track to make the playoffs. A huge part of football is making moves and picking up players you think are going to do good. You could gamble on a person who hasn't shown results in the past and you could look at upcoming games to see who's most likely to benefit from an easy matchup. Much like in real life football, the goal is to make the playoffs and then anything can happen. Top four teams with the best record make it in. Lose once and you're out. Win twice and you're the champion!
Now, I've been playing Fantasy Football on Yahoo since 2001 and I've only won my league once (in 2006).
When I say I've won once since I started in 2001, this can be a little deceiving however because I usually end up playing four different leagues every year! That will tell you how hard it is to win (or how much I suck I guess haha). I play so many leagues because A) it's fun and B) to give myself the best chance at winning. If the season is lost in one league I just shift my focus to my other three. Why is winning so important you ask?? Pride and bragging rights are what's at stake in the world of Fantasy Sports. The feeling is very satisfying because you know you chose the right players, made the right moves, and predicted correctly who was going to do well week-by-week. Even if you're not proving your physical talents on the field, you can prove your football and player knowledge online. Also, if you're in a private league with your friends, you can hold your win over them all the way till the next year!! On the other hand, if you win what's known as a "Public League", you get to come back the next year to join a "Winners League" and compete with 9 other winners from the prior year. The one time I won my public league in 2006, I got to the Winner's League but I ended up getting 5th out of 10. This obviously sucked but it also just made me want to get back there and test my skills again. SO....this brings us to my next goal....
#35. Win a fantasy football league
Like I said before I've only won once (2nd four times!) and I've been in about 16 leagues so I was determined to prove myself this season and win to get another shot at a Winner's League. This year I joined my usual four leagues: all four were public but two of them had a couple friends of mine in them. I like to play with friends in some of the leagues because the week you guys end up playing each other becomes very competitive and often times big gambles are made to ensure a win. In these leagues I usually spend more time thinking of who I'm going to initially draft for my team and do more planning but with my other regular public leagues, I tend to let the computer draft my initial players for me. It's fun to pick players yourself but it's also fun to find out which players you happen to randomly get from the computer's autodraft. Besides, rosters at the start of the year usually end up being vastly different from ones at the end due to trades, injuries, switches, etc.
Getting into some actual gameplay this year, something different I found myself doing a lot was looking at the overall team matchups in real life. For example, if the St Louis Rams were playing anybody, I would try to pick up players or defenses that were playing against them. This is because the Rams sucked major ass this season haha. Generally I looked for bad teams and picked up players who were going to be facing them. In past years I would be too scared to really shake up my lineups despite bad matchups because I would want to stick with tried and true players. I was really happy about some of the defenses I picked up that were playing against bad teams because I realized how big of a difference it made. Before I had just accepted whatever defense I had and didn't go through the trouble of finding a better one on a week-by-week basis. Also I gambled a few times on backup running backs who hadn't really shown any results but were going to be getting more playing time due to injured regular starters (BIG props to Jerome Harrison here). So overall I was pleased with my moves, despite my results.
So without further adieu, here are the 2009 results for all four of my Fantasy Football Leagues:
League #1 - They Aint Ready
My first pick was Brian Westbrook who was hurt most of the season. I lost my first 9 match ups and I stopped trying after about the first 5 losses. I finished in last place with a record of 3-10 and had the least amount of points overall. Moving on...
League #2 - Backyard Bullies
This is one of my favorite team names to use. However, I finished 5th out of 10 with a record of 8-6. I narrowly missed the playoffs by losing the last game of the regular season. I had the same record as the 3rd and 4th place teams but I had not accumulated as many points as them during the season, leaving me out of the playoffs. Notable Players were QB: Kurt Warner, WR: Andre Johnson and Brandon Marchall, RB: Adrian Peterson. I lost Owen Daniels who was a spectacular tight end this season until he got hurt and I let go of Miles Austin early in the season for some reason (whoops). Good team but not good enough...
League #3 - Backyard Bullies
Told you it was my favorite team name. I again finished the regular season with an 8-6 record but unlike the last league, I won my last regular season matchup and had the second most overall points in the league. I scored the largest amount of points for a single week out of anybody the whole season in that last game and I still only won the matchup by 4 points!! Another 40 yard catch by one of his players and I would've been on the sidelines. But anyway, my four point win and 8-6 record was good enough to catapult me into the playoffs. Coincidentally, the very next match up, the semifinal match in the playoffs was another close victory. This win was by 3 points! When games are this close, you tend to sit in front of the TV biting your nails, hoping your opponent's player doesn't get another catch. But my win put me in position to face off against the number one team in the finals for the championship. He had basically dominated the whole season with the best record and the most points in the league. However, we had played two close games during the regular season and split them one win apiece so I wasn't giving up by any means. My final line up had me thinking and rethinking over and over heading up to the final football Sunday. My main concern was my running backs, as they are usually the top point-getters each week. Should I go with the sometimes great and sometimes terrible Thomas Jones, the possible one-hit-wonder Jerome Harrison, or the great but what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Frank Gore?? I also had Harrison and Jones in my fourth league so did I want to mix it up or put all my eggs in one basket?? In the end, I went with Gore and Harrison in this league and Harrison and Jones in the other so I decided to put a lot of faith in this new backup RB who had done awesome the week before and was facing a favorable match up (the Oakland Raiders whom I tend to root for but accept the fact that they suck). As it turned out in the end, they all did about equally as well and posted some big numbers so my stressing was for not. As for the rest of my team, my QB Matt Shaub and my main WR Roddy White stepped up as they did for me all season and Sidney Rice did decent as well. I picked up the Colts defense and they disappointed me with 2 measly points (I guess that's why they lost the Super Bowl) and my other top receiver Brandon Marshall did poorly with only 4 points. It came down to the wire but......my performance as a team was good enough to edge out my competition by 7 points!!! I won both matchups in the playoffs and won the championship! I was so proud of myself for making the right decisions in the end. It does all come down to luck in how the real life players perform but it takes skill to predict and choose the best overall lineup to go against your opponent.
League #4 - Raaaaaaaandy
Yeah that's right, Randy with 8 A's. If you don't get the reference then I strongly suggest you go to Youtube and type in Raaaaaaaandy. This is also where I got my first league name "They Aint Ready" as a matter of fact. For the third league in a row, I had to win the last match up of the regular season to get into the playoffs. And that's just what I did, putting up the third highest score of my season, and finishing with a record of....yup you guessed it....8-6!! Hmm maybe there was a trend here? As a side note, this was the league that Jim was in as well. I had beaten him in our only regular season matchup a few weeks before by .48 points!! Yes that's right, .48 meaning I beat him by 4.8 yards! Haha suck it Jim. Nevertheless, he also made it to the playoffs with a record of 8-6 and we were poised for a rematch in the finals if we both won our semifinal matchups. But it was not to be. He lost pretty brutally actually to a team that had lost his last 4 matches going into the playoffs. Oh well, he made it to the playoffs in a couple other leagues too (he lost those as well btw hahaha). In my semifinal matchup, on the other hand, I beat the top ranked team by almost 20 points and made my way to the finals again. I was set to face Jim's opponent who had put up big numbers in that semifinals match. But I was not deterred as I went with the running backs I mentioned earlier along with the help of my wide receivers Steve Smith and Robert Meachem, and an Arizona defense going against St Louis. My QB Peyton Manning who won the league MVP this year was awesome all season but didn't post huge numbers for me in the final. Luckily, either did my most of my opponent's players (except for Randy Moss who is rediculous) and my team churned out the victory by almost 20 points!! So I ended up winning this league too and came away with another championship.
After all was said and done, I made it to the playoffs in two out of my original four leagues and ended up winning the championship in both those leagues. Everyone who makes it to the playoffs has talented players on their team but it all comes down to just two matches to get the championship. I went in to Fantasy Football this year wanting to win one league and get another chance at playing in a Winner's League. I walked away with pride, bragging rights, two "trophies", and a hope that I can prove myself next year in both Winner's Leagues.....
Mission Accomplished (twice)
I guess They ain't Ready just wasn't ready. Maybe you should choose your team names a little more carefully.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you're lucky that the Backyard Bullies (league #3) didn't come across the Frontyard Follies! That would have been the end of your winning streak!