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It’s just a Fantasy, It’s not the real thing

By ArtieFufkin

+10 points for anyone who got the Billy Joel reference in the post title

Along with the start of the NFL season, comes the beginning of Fantasy Football, giving millions of armchair GM’s an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and show off their football knowledge against their peers.

Admittedly, I’m a bit of a fantasy football geek.  I’m currently in 2 leagues, which is down from the 3 I used to play in.  With three leagues, it was just way too confusing knowing who to root for/against in any given game, and often times, you were rooting for/against the same guy!  So I knocked it down to a much more manageable 2 fantasy teams, much to the delight of my fiancee, I’m sure.

At this point, if you haven’t done your homework and ranked your players, you’re kind of screwed.  I mean, I’m sure plenty of guys fly by the seat of their pants, and they probably end up doing fine (which effing kills me) … but in general, you’re better off having a strategy going in.  I’m the kind of guy who likes to hit a home run with every pick, though this has never happened.  But after enough years doing this, I hope I’ve at least learned the kind of players to avoid, and which guys present the best value at each draft pick.  That’s the key word – value.  My strategy is to take the best player available – not entirely regardless of position – and stack your roster with people who will actually score points. You can always make trades later in the season.  I’m done with rolling the dice on rookies until they show that their talents translate to the NFL. Skip the boom or bust guys … give me the guys I can count on for 10 points every week.  Inevitably, quite a few of the players you draft won’t be on your roster come mid-season. But the draft is where you build your foundation, and determines how much you’ll have to scramble in free agency week in and out.

Reality check: Lest we forget, at the end of the day this is all really just for fun, so I try not to take it too seriously.  First and foremost, I’m a football fan, and my real-world allegiances (and overall perspective) take precedence over my fantasy world.  But you can’t help feel attached to anything you invest this much energy into, and you best believe my roster will be filled with players I like, and can cheer for on Sundays.

DRAFT NIGHT #1
12-team, standard scoring (non PPR)
Pick #4, Live Online draft

This is my work league, and I’m the commissioner, which makes me the uber-geek in the office.  But I’ve never actually won the championship, so it sort of makes all my supposed football knowledge worth bupkus.

For this league, most of the owners work together in the same office, which adds an extra element of pride/trash talk to the proceedings.  But we’ve got several out-of-town owners, hence the online draft so everyone can participate live.  Not as much fun as an in-person draft, but we’ve got the chat room to talk smack about each other’s picks.

Ray Rice is a hot fantasy prospect this season

With the #4 pick in this draft, I have a pretty good idea who I’m going to pick.  Barring any surprises in the top 3, it’ll most likely be Ray Rice, RB Baltimore.  After that, I’ll have about a half hour before my next pick, which be largely determined by who’s available.  I won’t bore you with the play-by-play, but I’ll try and keep track of any notable highlights along the way in the comments, and I’ll post my roster after it’s all said and done.  Because you know you care.