I have been playing fantasy sports for five years. I have gotten pretty good at it. Since 2005, I have been in 14 leagues. Nine of them have finished already and I have placed at least third in regular season standings in all of those leagues (average league size of 12), with the exception of a 4th place finish in a 18-team league. I am currently leading my baseball league. If I win it, I would have at least one league win for three years straight.
With all that said, let me add another thing: I know very little about actual sports. I don’t know which teams belong in the AL or the NL. I couldn’t tell you what teams many of my fantasy players play for in real life. I’m still a little bit hazy on what the different positions in basketball do. I rarely watch sports on TV or in person. I certainly wouldn’t be able to recognize most sports stars if they passed me on the street. I shy away from sports video games because I have no clue how to play them.
I see fantasy sports as a game and the players as stocks with values that rise and fall. Because of the time commitment that is required, I deem it worthy of being competitive over. Like a good investor, I gather information and try to find good values.
This is my first year playing fantasy football. Tai invited me to a $50 entry fee league with his coworkers. I spent this week preparing for the draft, more time than usual because I had to learn all of these unfamiliar names. I can already see some significant differences between fantasy football and basketball/baseball, such as the absence of streaming as a strategy. One thing I’m starting to do to prepare is run through a practice draft in a Yahoo! public league. It’s not a mock draft because I go on to play in the league but it helps me learn which players to reach for and which ones I can hold off on.
I was supposed to do my practice draft yesterday. I had my Excel file and my schedule open. I cracked my knuckles and clicked on the link to Yahoo’s fantasy sports page. It refused to load. Every other webpage didn’t have a problem. Just this specific webpage at this specific time. Even the rest of Yahoo! was working. If you knew all the shit that had happened to me earlier this week though, this kind of cosmic cruelty would seem about par for the course.
I check the site again a little later. Of course it works and of course the draft is already over. I check out the draft results and gaze at the horror that is auto-draft:
QB – Carson Palmer (38)
WR – Larry Fitzgerald (23)
WR – Marvin Harrison (43)
WR – Chris Chambers (63)
RB – Steven Jackson (3)
RB – Ryan Grant (18)
TE – Chris Cooley (58)
BN – Jonathan Stewart (98)
BN – Donald Driver (103)
BN – Jerry Porter (118)
BN – Tony Scheffler (123)
BN – Jon Kitna (138)
K – Shayne Graham (83)
BN – David Akers (143)
DEF – Jacksonville (78)
There are a few picks that I like, but overall, it will be a struggle to transform this team into a winner.
So today, I decide to try it again. This time I can get to the fantasy homepage, but when I try to join the draft, it doesn’t fully load! The progress bar is stuck at about 90% on several attempts. The solution was to update my Flash player because now the draft window is really fancy, with a ton of flashy (heh heh) graphics and features. I was not too happy to see that they show the ADP of each player because it levels the playing field a bit for the managers who don’t do any pre-draft research.
I’d like to think that I have a better team here than my auto-drafted one, but you can be the judge of that:
QB – Donovan McNabb (52)
WR – T.J. Houshmandzadeh (29)
WR – Calvin Johnson (49)
WR – Donald Driver (69)
RB – Frank Gore (9)
RB – Larry Johnson (12)
TE – Vernon Davis (92, autodrafted/ran out of time)
BN – Jamal Lewis (32)
BN – Matt Forte (72)
BN – Jay Cutler (89)
BN – Anthony Gonzalez (109)
BN – Selvin Young (112)
BN – Donte’ Stallworth (129)
K – Kris Brown (149)
DEF – Jacksonville (132)
I hated being at the end of the snake (9th pick with 10 teams). It forced me to reach for some players to fill scarce positions (McNabb, Driver). I learned that it is not a good idea to go RB-RB with the first two picks because the RB position is deep and there are a lot of good values to be found in the middle rounds of the draft when managers are skipping over RBs to fill other positions. Anticipating this, I would try to get a WR with one of my first two picks, so that I wouldn’t feel pressured to reach for one later when the run starts. I would’ve enjoyed getting Jamal Lewis with the 32nd pick if I had chosen Terrell Owens in the second round instead of Larry Johnson. I’m not sure how important the bench is in fantasy football yet. I know I can use my RB3 at least twice, during the bye weeks of my main guys. But if there’s not much more to that, then it would be a lot of wasted stats for Lewis.
Now I turn my attention to Tai’s league, where there’s money on the line and the smack talk matters. I don’t know Tai’s coworkers, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s more or less like a public league. The main thing that I needed to take into consideration though is the custom settings for the league. These are the differences from the default settings and the adjustments I am making in my drafting strategy:
12 teams instead of 10 - I don't have enough experience to know how to adjust my drafting for this, but I think it means that shallow positions are even more valuable. Being at the end of the snake would be even more brutal too, as you would have to watch up to 22 picks go by between yours. Yup, might have to stretch before the draft because of all the reaching you'll do.
W/R replaces one WR position – It allows the manager more flexibility in setting his lineup. This slot is going to be filled by a RB most of the time because they score more points. But if there are three good WR matchups for the week, this will be useful. In terms of drafting, there is less pressure to reach for WR. This also makes drafting RB-RB for the first two rounds a more attractive strategy.
Passing Touchdowns worth 6 points instead of 4 – This is a huge boost to the value of the QB position, which is already the highest-scoring. Tom Brady would have scored you an extra 100 fantasy points last year under this setting. Drafting a top 5 QB is essential.
Interceptions worth -2 points instead of -1 – No significant effect. QBs don’t throw more than 25 interceptions over the course of the season and the touchdown boost above more than compensates for this.
(Offensive) Return Touchdowns not scored – No significant effect.
FG (0-39 yds.) missed worth -1 point – No significant effect. Kickers only miss a few field goals per season.
Blocked Kicks worth 3 instead of 2
Kickoff and Punt Return Touchdowns worth 6 points – Chicago led the league in return TDs in 2006 and 2007 by a margin of 2. They also led the league in blocked kicks last year. These two changes slightly boost other DEF point contributions, but they don't boost their relative value like it does for Chicago. Unlike a manager who is looking to get San Diego or Minnesota, I can just let the crowd dictate when the run for DEF will start rather than risking jumping the gun too early.
I will update the blog later tonight after the draft. Hopefully everything goes according to plan!
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