The First Year Fantasy Footballer
Okay okay okay okay. I finally caved and signed up for a fantasy football league. I had avoided it for years because my rampent homerism clashes with the idea that you have to have people from other teams (possibly even rivals!) that you may possibly want to do… well. It borders on blasphemy!
I can’t tell you exactly what pushed me over the edge. Maybe it was the incredulous looks people gave me when they found out I hadn’t accepted that facet of fandom into my heart. Maybe it was peer pressure. Maybe it was because my fellow fansiders started up a league and I couldn’t resist the temptation to have the opportunity to kick their butts and at the same time say things like “teehee I have never played this before I have no idea what I am doing!”
(Here’s a hint: it was the last sentence.)
Truth be told, I did know some of the basics of fantasy football. You don’t draft a kicker til the end (sorry Scobee). Brian Westbrook didn’t go for the touchdown. Maurice Jones-Drew is better than Fred Taylor because he is the running back that gets the touchdowns. That is about it. I bought a fantasy draft guide from Publix, sat down with my boyfriend and prepared for last night’s draft.
Here at fansided, we had 16 people drafting. I had pick 9 which seemed nice to me. The other fansiders traded and moved up and down and all around but I was determined to sit right where I was. What do I know about this stuff?
My final draft looked like this:
Round 1: Randy Moss WR
Round 2: Willie Parker RB
Round 3: Edgerrin James RB
Round 4: David Garrard QB
Round 5: Joey Galloway WR
Round 6: Donald Driver WR
Round 7: Alge Crumler TE
Round 8: Chris Brown RB
Round 9: Jerry Porter WR
Round 10: Eagles D/ST
Round 11: Tarvaris Jackson QB
Round 12: Antwaan Randle El WR
Round 13: Mike Hart RB
Round 14: Jacob Hester RB
Round 15: Matt Stover K
Bold indicates starters.
As Adam from Arrowhead Addict observed, there were homer picks in that draft. I am sure you can pick out the most obvious but there are two others I picked because of other bias. Willie Parker is all sorts of awesome because he works out with Fred Taylor and was going to give up his Pro Bowl spot for him even before he got hurt. My boyfriend pushed for me to pick up Edgrerrin James because he is from the U. Antwaan Randle El played for the Steelers when I was dating a Steelers fan (thus, I watched every one of their games).
Stats? What the heck are those?
Also, I have apparently formed the geezer league because all my starters are really old. Not a single one of them was born after 1980. The youngest is Willie Parker (28) and the oldest is Matt Stover (40). 40. That is, what? 100 in football years? Aww geez my plan to mock the other fansiders may not actually work as planned.
My first game is against Ian from Inside the Iggles. You’re going down, buddy! You’re going to feel silly when you lose to a rookie fantasy player who has a team of players who probably went to school with John McCain.