Fantasy Football Championships and Abruptly Switching to Fantasy Basketball

I went to a Christmas Eve party with my sister a few days ago.  Hanging out with my sister can be interesting because it always seem like the most random occurrences happen when we get together, and this night was no different. Besides the fact that we were in Compton and there were children running around everywhere, I wasn't too much into the party. Me being me, I was just laying back in the cut plotting on the low.  I was thinking about ways to improve my blog.  More importantly,  I was thinking about ways to improve my PhantasySteez.

Now when I started this I let it be known that I am not some type of fantasy expert, just a regular guy and my fantasy football record for this season proves that. I started off with 15 teams. Six of those teams went to the playoffs. Three went to championships.  One of those three teams lost.  Another team won and was crowned champion.  I still have one active though in an ESPN league with a two-week championship game.

Going into the second week of this championship game I have a 32 point advantage advantage against my opponent. I actually just put in Colin Kaepernick this week. He started off as my starter, but for the past five weeks Tony Romo has been my starting quarterback. It looks very doubtful for Romo this week so I had to bench him.

I already took out the Detroit Lions defense for the Cincinnati Bengals defense.  Starting the Lions D was an experiment I tried last week when they played against the New York Giants. They did earn me 10 points last week, but for right now I'm going to stick with the Bengals D against the Baltimore Ravens. Come to think of it, I might have to reconsider because the Ravens are fighting to get into the playoffs. I'm going to have to do more research, something that I haven't been doing because I've been playing fantasy basketball. I think I've found a way to incorporate the fantasy basketball into PhantasySteez, but for now I'll just give you a small synopsis of whats going on.

So I have these two fantasy basketball teams which I may have mentioned in previous posts, but I never really got into it. I don't really play fantasy basketball, but when my boy Mike invited me, I took it as another way to get my rep up on that PhantasySteez. Besides, I was getting mopped up in Mike's fantasy football league, so I figured why not. I went ahead and picked up another random league just to compare. Like I said I don't really play fantasy basketball, so there was no need to go all out and draft 15 teams like I did with fantasy football.

I only have 2 Fantasy Basketball teams

I'm doing a little better than I expected. Both squads are in 2nd place. The scoring formats in these leagues are different. In Mike's league, you have to win a majority of the stat categories to get a win. For example, if I win 6 out of 9 stat categories by the end of the week, I get the W. In the random league, you the stat categories you win goes towards your record. For example, if at the end of the week I've won 6 out of 9 categories, my record is 6-3. Interesting, but we'll see how this plays out now that I'm about to fully transition to fantasy basketball.

Vacation

It's the playoffs... Or to be more specific,  it's Fantasy Football Super Bowl week. Win or go home. Guess where I am right now... AT HOME. I'm on a little little vacation from my regular job. Feels good, but it hasn't done anything as far as my losing streak on that PhantasySteez is concerned.

To start off, in my two main leagues, Roughing the Picker and Coast2Coast Ballers, I have officially been eliminated.  In Roughing the Picker I was eliminated a couple of weeks ago, and I lost the 5th place game last week. My boy Victor lost last week too, but right now he's in the 3rd place game hoping that Frank Gore doesn't go off tonight.  In Coast2Coast Ballers I lost last week to my arch rival Mr. Hindsman and im pretty sure I lost this weekend as well in the 5th place game.  Basically,  in both leagues I finished in 6th place.  Very disappointing.

On the plus side, I got 3 teams,  one on ESPN two on Yahoo, in championship games.  Starting with the ESPN league, I'm currently ahead right now and I got one player for tonight. However, ESPN leagues have two week playoff games. So it's not over, but I go into next week with an advantage which will bring me that much closer to winning the league.

I my Yahoo leagues, I have a split between the two leagues. One league I lost so I'll end up in second. Not bad, but nobody remembers second place. If I can steal a line from Ricky Bobby, "If you ain't 1st, you're last" The other Yahoo league I'm in victory lane. I'm up by 11 points and I still have Phil Dawson to play tonight. My opponent has nobody left,  so that's one guaranteed trophy for the mantle.

So now it's pretty much a wrap for fantasy football. Now I have to think about what's next because I've enjoyed writing about fantasy football, but with the season quickly coming to an end what do I write about now? Most likely it'll be my fantasy basketball teams. I have two of them but I've been shying away from writing about it simply because I can't decide to write it under this blog PhantasySteez or create a whole new blog for it. Most likely, I'll probably just do it on that PhantasySteez instead of creating a while new blog, but who knows. We'll have to wait and see.

Lastly,  I just want to say thank you to all those who read my blog. When I first started, it was just something to do.  But it has motivated me in so many ways and my readers have motivated me as well. Shout out to 2 Cs,  Victor,  Mr. Hindsman, +Salvatore Surra, +Robyn Adams, Isolda Aldana, and everyone else who reads my blog. I greatly appreciate your support. Happy Holidays.

Playoffs!!

Playoffs! I had been waiting for this to come up all season, but now that it's here, I don't even want to play the game anymore. Something happened not this past weekend, but the weekend before last week in one of my leagues. It kind of just killed the whole PhantasySteez for me.

In one of my main leagues, Coast2Coast Ballers, I felt like I got bamboozled. I after Sunday night I was up by at least 170 points against my opponent. For Monday, my opponent had Golden Tate and the Saints Defense. Now, in this league the way the score settings are, you defense can easily score 170 points. My defense, the Packers Defense, had pretty much scored the difference of the score at this time, having 1 touchdown, 2 forced fumbles and two interceptions. The Saints Defense, who played the Seahawks, had no touchdowns, no interceptions, no force fumbles, and the Seahawks scored 34 points against them, yet they scored like 185 points. By the end of the Monday night, I had lost by 20 points.



I was low key pissed off. How did the my team have a much impressive defense have a pretty decent defensive outcome while the Saints Defense had a miserable outcome but had more fantasy points than my Packers Defense? I ranted about this in our league and this was the response I got from the commish...

Like how I scratched out everyone else's comments #GalaxyNote3

Rules are rules, but I was pissed. All the Saints did was tackle. Special teams didn't do anything. I was very upset. So upset in fact, I didn't even want to play anymore. Even though I had barely made the playoffs in Roughing the Picker that week, this mockery of points just killed the whole scenario for me. I didn't plan for anything last week. I didn't do any research, no writing, no nothing. Then Friday, I got my new toy, the Galaxy Note 3! Shout out to 2Cs!! I played around most of the weekend, and by Sunday morning, I was happy again... content. Now though, I was spending Sunday morning trying to make sure my lineups were good in Roughing the Picker where it was the first week of the playoffs and in Coast2Coast Ballers where it was the last week of the regular season and I was trying to keep a hold of the first round bye.

Well, I got blew out in both games. Most of my players had bad games, most likely due to injury or bad weather. It was snowing everywhere this past Sunday. Ironic part is, the scores in two different leagues, on two different platforms, look almost identical.

So I'm out of the playoffs in Roughing the Picker. As far as Coast2Coast Ballers, me losing has me barely in the playoffs in sixth place. Not only that, I have to play Mr. Hindsman this week. The two of us weren't expecting this matchup until the championship. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has fallen off as he has lost four in a row and both of us lost our top ranked status. So now only one of us are going to to ship... maybe.

I still intend on going to the championship, regardless on if I have to play Mr. Hindsman in the first round. I must plan carefully though if I'm to win because Mr. Hindsman can be relentless on that PhantasySteez. Last time I played him in Week 1, he won convincingly. This time though, I'm trying to have opposite results. Mr. Hindsman like to run multiple quarterbacks, as most of the players in this league do. Outside of Cam Newton, my quarterback squad sucks. Luckily, it looks like Aaron Rodgers is not going to play this week, so I picked up Matt Flynn off of waivers. Flynn has been inconsistent for the most part, but he has improved with every start. Also, the Packers play the Dallas Cowboys this week, and their pass defense sucks ass.

I also picked up Kirk Cousins. In case you missed it, RG3 has been benched and Cousins is going to start. This could be a good thing in the NFL and on that PhantasySteez. Last season, Cousins started in two or three games and did fairly well. Actually, he did above average. This week the Redskins play the Atlanta Falcons and Cousins could potentially feast on their defense. Most likely I'm going to start Cousins and not Flynn, which will have my lineup looking like this...

The Don vs. Mr. Hindsman II

Pretty tasty matchup on that PhantasySteez, I must say.

The Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Defeat

Well, here we are. Week 13. In most leagues, this is the last week of the fantasy football regular season. The last chance to make it into the winner's bracket of the playoffs. In most of my leagues I'm averaging a record of about 7-5, but of course in my two main leagues one is playoff bound and the other is not.

Starting out with my most important, the league I have money on, I have failed to make the winner's bracket in Roughing the Picker. I talked a little about what happened with Danny Woodhead and Bob Rainey yesterday so I won't go into why I think I lost this week. Instead, I look at some of the inconsistencies of my lineup. I drafted Alfred Morris, but I was never quite sold on him having a solid sophomore campaign. I tried to trade him for Trent Richardson. Good thing Choopie refused that trade as we all know how Richardson has been doing this season. So I've been stuck with Morris who was too good to drop, but playing for a confused Washington Redskins team has definitely affected his production.

Aside from Morris, I was never really a fan of having two quarterbacks on my bench. Even though this is a two quarterback league,  I knew I didn't need to have two quarterbacks on the bench. I felt like it was limiting the capacity of my bench, which i realized later to be fact as I suffered during bye weeks. I never fixed the situation until last week when I dropped Geno Smith for Bob Rainey, and as we all know, Rainey didn't do shit this past week.

Crazy part is I still have a very slim chance to make the playoffs. As of writing this, I was going over the league schedule and playoff format and it looks like this league takes six teams to the playoffs. I thought it was only four teams that went into the winner's bracket. Currently, I'm in seventh place, and coincidentally, I'm playing the guy who is in sixth place. This put me in a must-win situation, or as I like to call it, Manning Eli mode. I'll get more into that later, but right now I can't stress how imperative victory has become. Should I win, I'll have the same record as my opponent, but I would've scored more points overall, thus putting me in sixth place.

The scenario is not as scary in my other main league, Coast2Coast Ballers. I recovered from a four game losing streak last week with a victory of Ron. I'm still in second place, but I got Savel on my ass. The playoffs doesn't start until week 15, so I'm trying to retain second place so I can get that first round bye. Also coincidentally, I play Savel again week 14. Savel beat me a few weeks ago after I talked all that shit. I should still be able to win, but I gotta be careful. Just one loss could have me in the same situation I'm as Roughing the Picker.... MANNING ELI!

Blue Monday

It's Monday, and I spent most of my weekend hiding in my apartment. Reality has been interesting, so interesting that I've been distracted a tad bit from that PhantasySteez. I felt good this morning though, and I thought I would just point out some things I've noticed from this weekend when it comes to fantasy football, and I'm even going to throw in some fantasy basketball.

Yeah that's right. Fantasy basketball. I had been reluctant on writing about my fantasy basketball squad because I wasn't really into fantasy basketball and I didn't know if I was going to start a whole new blog for it or just continue it in this  blog. Well, I guess since I'm writing about it here that answers that question right? Yeah, so my boy from Dillard University Mike DeBose invited me to his fantasy basketball league, and I accepted. I'm also in Mike's fantasy football league, but I'm in 7th place. Weird part about that is it's an eight man league, which means free agency is not as crucial as my other leagues, but for some reason the Ws have not coming in that league.

Going back to fantasy basketball, I was undefeated until now. I lost to Alexis. Now, I should know most of the people in this league, as most of them are Dillard alumni. Of course I don't know everybody. I may remember some names, but beyond that I doubt they even remember who I am. They might remember my face, but for the most part I don't know any of these cats. But now I'm 3-1 because I lost to Alexis, whoever that is. One thing about fantasy basketball, you have to be on top of your lineup. I lost this week because I wasn't on top of my injuries. I thought Deron Williams was playing through his injuries. Instead he was being scratched at game time, so now I'm getting no production from him. Being somewhat new to fantasy basketball, I'm not sure if I should drop him or bench him. Luckily, this is just fun to me, and we'll have to wait to see how this come out.

Back to football though, I'm pretty sure I'm out of the playoffs in Roughing the Picker. My recent losing streak has been fierce effecting my two important teams and benefiting my 12 other random leagues. It looks like I'm going to make the playoffs in about 9 other leagues, but the league that has money on the line, I pretty much blew it. This week, I made a major mistake. I benched Danny Woodhead. Over the last couple of weeks, he had been mediocre, even below average. I benched him for the Bob Rainey. That was a horrible mistake. Horrible!! Being that this is a PPR league, for some reason Woodhead and the Chargers decided they wanted to beat the Chiefs, and on the bench, Woodhead had like 35 points yesterday, ON MY BENCH!

Meanwhile, my opponent had Julian Edelman. I laughed Sunday morning when I looked at the matchup and say my opponent had started Edelman, but Sunday evening was bittersweet as the Patriots, my team, beat the Broncos, and Edelman  scored twice. What made Edelman decided to show up? Why Brady didn't look for Gronk? I believe it's because Brady had been looking for Gronk the past two weeks and the results have been losses. So now, I got Alfred Morris playing tonight and he has to make up a 38 point deficit, which is very unlikely against San Francisco's defense.

I don't really have much to say about Coast2Coast Ballers. I've been on a four game losing streak, pretty much since I started that shit talking against Mr. Hindsman and Savel. This week, I have a 46 point lead against Ron. I'm done, and he has Vernon Davis left to play tonight. I should win, but then again, you never know. I did notice one thing about my losing streak though. I had Case Keenum in the lineup those weeks. That's all I have to say about that.

Lastly, I have two leagues right where I started Colin Kaepernick. I was reluctant about starting Kaepernick, but for some reason I had Matthew Berry in the back of my head saying, "Stop being cute, you're starting Kaepernick." So I did and in one league, I lost, not because of Kaepernick, but the rest of the team didn't show up. But in the other league,  I'm down by 19 points. So in essence, I need Kaepernick to embrace Monday night. I need him to demolish the Redskin's defense. I'm going estimate... 2 touchdowns, 250 yards passing, 100 yards on the ground and a rushing touchdown... yeah, that should do it. We'll see if my inner Matthew Berry is correct.

Lastly, for real this time, aside from all the other BS going on, I was reluctant to post because I read an article about using other people's pictures on blogs, which I have been doing. Yeah, I'm not trying to be sued, so until I figure something else out, PhantasySteez is going pictureless.

A Case of the Mondays

It's Monday morning and I'm a little tired for a couple of reasons. I usually wake up at 4 a.m. Why? I don't know. But this morning I was going over the scores from yesterday's action and I was seeing how my fantasy teams did when I noticed two things. First thing, which is somewhat off topic but still on that PhantasySteez, both of my two fantasy basketball teams are in first place. A couple of reasons why I have written about my fantasy basketball teams, mainly time and inconvenience. Second, I was about to lose in my two most important leagues again, and almost in the same fashion as it been the last few weeks. It would appear that I'm having a reoccurring case of the Mondays.

The Mondays can ruin any fantasy football player's weekend. You know what I'm talking about right? I'm talking about when by Sunday evening you're team is up but come Monday night you've lost the game because your opponent has one or two more players for Monday Night Football. For some reason those one or two players have a monster career game and by the end you're feeling like dirt. It's one of the worst ways to lose in fantasy football.

This week once again I'm on the verge of losing in my two main leagues. The one I want to talk about in particular is the potential loss which is causing me to have this terrible case of the Mondays. Right now in Roughing the Picker, I have a 45 point lead against my opponent The Tea Party Express, or Aaron for short. I'm hoping that will be enough to cover the spread as I don't have any more players remaining for tonight. I know he has Ryan Tannehill playing tonight and this morning at 4:20 a.m. I was hoping he would put up his usual statistics of about 200 yards and a touchdown and about two turnovers. Plus, let's not forget that the Dolphins offensive line is all discombobulated now considering the whole Incognito situation, so I was feeling quite comfortable with my 45 point lead.

Something happened though while I was at 7-11 sipping on my 100% Colombian, waiting for the bus to come. I sent Victor a text about how Tannehill needed to score 45 points and he pointed out that Aaron also has Vincent Jackson playing tonight. How could I have overlooked such a important factor in this equation? Jackson really hasn't missed a beat on that PhantasySteez, even with a changing of quarterbacks. Miami's defense is not bad, but they aren't too good either. I could easily see Mike Glennon going for at least two touchdowns, with at least one of those going to Jackson, thus easily assisting Tannehill cover the 45 point deficit.

At this point a loss in this league could be crucial. Currently I'm in fourth place behind Aaron who is in third. So I victory could propel me to third place with the playoffs only a few weeks ahead. A loss however could drop me down to sixth or even seventh, and once again with the playoffs lurking, it could make the situation that much harder. For the rest of the day this situation will probably cause a serious lack of enthusiasm. It's Monday and I'm already tired.

It's not how you start, it's how you finish...?

Last night around 7:30 p.m. I was pretty exhausted when Victor called me. He kindly reminded me that I haven't posted in over a week. This is very true and I went in to him scout ask the other stuff I'm doing. Victor's response basically was I should have at least two posts a week. Then we talked about what I could write about. I could easily write about how Andre Johnson smashed me last week; How I traded him in Coast2Coast Ballers and the week he decided to have a monster game I played the guy I traded him to... I could write about how the Packers receivers are in trouble until Aaron Rodgers come back. But being that it's Thursday, I have a couple of things to talk about.

First thing is it's amazing how my boy Victor in Roughing the Picker and my nemesis Mr. Hindsman in Coast2Coast Ballers both have an 8-1 record. Both of these guys managed to survive last week without Peyton Rocket Laser Arm Manning (which I did want to write about him having a bye week). Both of them have a knack of coming back and winning on Monday nights. What really irks me is both of them has beaten me. In two of my most important leagues, I see I'm going to have to step it up. The road to the championships lead to defeating Victor and Mr. Hindsman once and for all.

Speaking of Coast2Coast Ballers, I've been on a losing streak ever since I started beef with Savel and Mr. Hindsman. It's only two games and I'm still in second place but these defeats are kind of grinding my gears. The loss to Savel I sort of accept because I probably didn't manage my team properly. The loss to Cephus however really stung because I gave him Andre Johnson and the week I play Cephus, Johnson decided to blow up. If I lose another game it'll probably drop me down to third or fourth. I'm not trying to have that. I must dominate so I can get my revenge on Mr. Hindsman in the playoffs.

Lastly, speaking of playoffs, it's week 10 and we all should be concentrated on the playoffs. It'll be here before you know it and you don't want to get caught slipping and miss the playoffs. Out of all my teams, the average record is 5-4 (I have one team sitting at 5-2-2). In most leagues, this is about middle of the pack.

Most of the time, I don't want to lose any more than four games in a season because it can cause problems as far as playoff seeding. In most league, the top four teams are put in the championship bracket while everyone else plays in the consolation bracket. I can manage with getting into the championship bracket with four losses, but with five losses like I have with some teams, it's easier said than done. I would pretty much need to run the table for my teams that have five losses already. The task can be daunting, but not impossible. This week is the first week of rematches, and it's not about how you start, its about how you finish... I think.

Waving the White Flag

Something weird happened yesterday. I took the day off. I didn't leave my apartment. I watched football all day. Most importantly, I know I lost at least one if the two most important fantasy football games of the week. I have awkward feelings about both of these potential defeats.

Starting with the game that I have a confirmed defeat, my best friend Victor has defeated me in Roughing the Picker. Despite a high output from my team, Victor's team has a nice lead. Plus, I'm out of players and he still has Russell Wilson playing tonight. Kuddos Victor, the student has become the teacher... Or has he? When I started instigating this important matchup, I predicted that should Victor win, which he has, it would be because I told him who to start, which I did. I recall last Thursday in Hawthorne where in a phone conversation I questioned him starting the Cleveland Browns defense. I mentioned how in Coast2Coast Ballers I was starting Green Bay's defense. He was very intrigued. All of a sudden on Sunday, my day off, I see Victor is starting Green Bay's D! I sent him a text kindly reminding him of my prediction. He did acknowledge the prediction but also mentioned he got a last minute tip from ESPN. Regardless and point being, even though I did lose, it's a very satisfying defeat because I told you how to beat me, and you took my advice. Good job Victor. Celebrate. Rub it in all week. You deserve it.

In my other important matchup, I strongly feel like in going to lose against Savel. Right now I'm up by a good 106 points, but he has Seattle's defense and Golden Tate playing tonight.  The way the point structure is set up in Coast2Coast Ballers, Seattle's D can surpass the 106 points by itself, especial against a Sam Bradford-less St. Louis Rams team.

I'm very unsatisfied with this potential defeat. However I must point out two significant factors that relates to the causes of this defeat.

First, Andy Dalton killed me. He threw five touchdowns and scored 41 points. I would've been fine with that IF all of these touchdowns went to A.J. GREEN. Only one toucdown to Green. Not like Matthew Stafford who threw 329 yards to Megatron. Dalton threw 4 touchdowns to Marvin Jones, not to A.J. Green, which would've countered the 41 point outcome from Dalton and increase my chances for victory. Andy Dalton killed me.

Secondly, I noticed something very interesting in which I'm sure Savel, Mr. Hindsman, Tyree and the Commissioner can identify with. Should I lose, it'll be the exact same way I lost to Mr. Hindsman in week one. The league starts one quarterback, but the league also starts two offensive players. Unlike the standard flex position, you can start a quarterback at offensive player. In the league, one of the best ways to maximum your point outcome is to start as many quality quarterbacks as possible. I only started one quarterback against Mr. Hindsman, and I only started one quarterback against Savel. Savel started Drew Brees and Andy Dalton. Should I have started another quarterback at offensive player instead of starting Giovanni Bernard, I probably would've had a better chance. You see why I think In going to lose?

So I may have put my foot in my mouth.  I wave the white flag. I may have lost both games. Victor and Savel have all rights to talk shit. But next time we play, I'll be talking again... #DonStatus

Practice What You Preach Part 1

Yesterday I wrote about how three individuals were talking about how they were going to beat me this week. I kindly responded by declaring I will be victorious and low key taking a couple of jabs at some of the remarks that were made. Well, now it's time for me to back up all that trash talk. Even though I proclaimed I would come out with Ws, the task is easier said than done.

Starting with my team going against Victor in Roughing the Picker, I don't really like the situation at all. I have three key players on byes this week. I need to find players to fill in this week for Matt Forte, Martellus Bennett, and Danny Woodhead. Being that this is a PPR league, all three of these players have been crucial components of my team. The bad news is, since there isn't a waiver wire in this league, finding players from free agency can be difficult as other managers keep a close eye for players who are available. Even on Sunday during games, you can add players on your squad for the upcoming week. It also doesn't help that this years injuries are coming at a rapid rate.

So far, the only player I've picked up from free agency is Chris Ivory to fill in for Forte, but I'm a little skeptical on this pick up. In my opinion, he's only going to be productive if Bilal Powell doesn't get many snaps. As of writing this, I can only assume Powell is healthy and Rex Ryan could have a different games plan than he did last week where Ivory got a majority of the touches and fantasy points. Looking at who else is available in free agency, the most intriguing players available are Powell, Rashard Mendenahall, Mike Tolbert, Andre Ellington, Jason Snelling, and Brandon Bolden. As of right now, I haven't made a final decision on who to start at for Forte, but the wrong decision could be extremely crucial.

The situation is very interesting when it comes to finding someone to fill in for Martellus Bennett. I have Bennett and Gronk as the two tight ends on my squad. The problem is both of them start as Bennett fills the TE spot and Gronk fills in the versatile W/T (wide receiver/tight end) position.Obviously I'm going to put Gronk at TE, but that leaves the W/T position open. On my bench I got Kenbrell Thompkins, Steve Johnson, Geno Smith, and Terrelle Pryor (I've been trying to figure out why I have two quarterbacks on the bench). What concerns me is with Gronk back, Thompkins production, which hasn't really been too consistent, is expected to go down. With Steve Johnson, the quarterback situation is a little too shaky for me to really depend on him. The free agency for wide receiver is below average full of people either I've never heard of or third or fourth option receivers, so I'm going have to make it work with either Thompkins or Johnson.

The problem I have with finding someone to fill in for Danny Woodhead is pretty much all of the above I explained with replacing Forte and Bennett. I have Woodhead at the W/R (wide receiver/running back position. I only have three running backs, well four if you include Ivory. So I can either pick up one of the running backs I mentioned earlier from free agency, or again, I can decide between Thompkins and Johnson. Right now, I like Johnson, but I'm going to have to further investigate before Sunday to see exactly what the final lineup is going to look like.

Most likely, it's going to be a game time decision when it comes to who's going to start. Tomorrow I'm going to figure out how I'm going to back up all this shit I talked in Coast2Coast Ballers.

Are you questioning my Phantasy Steez?

I know I've started of this way before, but I'm a very busy man. In fact, I'm busier than I think I am. Between work, that girl from high school, that dude in Oklahoma, the Carson House, looking for property, trying to finish school, taking care of the Don's business, and other random fuckery, sometimes I can hardly think. I'll be the first to admit, I've gotten lucky the last couple of weeks with my fantasy teams as I have barely managed them. In fact, my boy Victor had to remind me to put Gronk in this past Sunday. In the middle of that, some haters out there are trying to question my Phantasy Steez.

It's hard being in a league with your best friend because eventually you have to play them. That week is this week as I play Victor in Roughing the Picker. Because in this league we don't have a waiver wire and have to wait to pick up players, I was trying to get my lineup set for next week when I noticed that I play Victor this week. Victor is in first place in this league going 6-1. I'm in third place going 4-3. I sent him a text saying "ummm... you know you're going to lose this week, right?" That's where it all started. He went on about how he's had his lineup set since last Saturday. Then he kindly reminded me that if he hadn't reminded me to put in Gronk, I probably would've lost. Even while writing this post, he's texting me bragging about how he's projected to win. I take this as him questioning my Phantasy Steez because if anyone knows how hectic my real life is, it should be Victor right? But he insists that I'm falling off because my personal life distracts me from my fantasy squads. Truth be told, my real life is more interesting than my fantasy football teams. I'm not worried about making stupid trades with Donkey Punch when my squad is already legit, like yours is. Side note, I really think he's trying to punk you out of your best players for popular named players. Back on topic and keeping it real, the only reason why your squad is in first place is because Peyton Rocket Laser Arm Manning is holding your squad together. Truth be told Victor, you're my best friend and we go back to when the Don was just Spooky, but I'm going to win and if you so happen to win, it'll be because I told you who to start. #DonStatus.

But Victor is the least of my worries right now.

My house is reminiscent of the stone ages. I don't have cable and I don't have internet. Crazy right? I know, but that's what it is right now. So when it comes to managing my teams, it's mostly done on my phone. Usually, I only pay attention to my teams to make sure my lineups are straight. Yesterday, I just so happen to check it out while I was at work from my computer in the warehouse and I was amused by a post from Mr. Hindsman basically disrespecting my Phantasy Steez, while low key jabbing at others. Today I jump on and there's a message from Savel directly calling me out, disrespecting my state and claiming by the end of next week I'm going to be 6-2. To make matters worse, Mr. Hindsman bandwagons the post daring me to blog about it... which pretty much prompted this post. You see, the rivalry between me and these two cowards go back some years, and now that I'm in first place, or second if you ask Mr. Hindsman, all they can do is hate.

First of all Savel, seems to me as if the only thing you're the best in the world at is popping off at the mouth. You're lineup is garbage and your three victories have come against bums. Sad part about that is two of your defeats to bums has come by 2 points or less. Okay, you have some key Saints players on you team that can do damage, but don't think with players like Golden Tate, Reuben Randle, BenJarvis Green-Ellis, and Kyle Rudolph that you're going to beat me and I'm going to be 6-2. Oh, and by the way, Westside is the Best side! Bow down when you come to my town!

And as for you Mr. Hindsman, I really don't know why you talking. True, we met up week one and you came out victorious. I even gave you props for your victory in a blog post afterwards, yet you still out there hating. You better be lucky our commissioner, who I've already beaten twice, only scheduled us to play once. Must be because he's in grad school why he failed to match us up more than once. But regardless, I understand that the rest of the guys in our league are bums and you had to spice it up by hating on me. Its okay, I understand. I also understand that you are the number one fan of my blog, so you gave me the brilliant idea of bringing our shit talking to Phantasy Steez. Thanks Mr. Hindsman, because I was going to blog about something completely different. I'll see you in the Championship Mr. Hindsman.

Practice?

I'm a sports connoisseur. I get down with a lot of sports. Basketball, football, baseball, soccer... Don't really get down with hockey, but I love sports. One of the things I like about sports is sports journalism. I especially like post game interviews. After the joy and agony of the game, post game interviews can become very interesting and entertaining.

One of my favorite post game interviews is Allen Iverson back in 2002. A reporter asked him about a comment his coach made about his participation in practice.  Iverson simply responded ” practice?” He ranted on voicing his frustration of the question emphasizing that at a post game interview the question wasn't about the game that was just played, the question was about PRACTICE. This post game interview went on to become one if the most memorable post game interviews in American sports history.

Unfortunately, I had to give a slightly modified version of this speech last night. It all started yesterday afternoon right before quitting time. I received an email from Yahoo sports. I thought it was concerning this league I'm in where this guy is trying to trade me Seattle defense and Rob Gronkowski for DeSean Jackson. Instead it was about a trade that went on in one of my main leagues, Roughing the Picker.  The trade consisted of Danny Amendola, T.J. Yates, and Brandon Myers for Matt Ryan. Weird but if that's what they want then I'm with it.

How did T.J. Yates get involved in a trade?

When I got off of work I sent a text to my boy Victor to talk about the trade. He let's me know that he was texting with the other members of the league and the trade was a ”joke” and the two members who agreed to the trade wanted us other members to vote against the trade because it was supposed to be just a "joke". Are you serious? So you mean that the trade is not real and this dudes are joking, or the way I see it, practicing? It's the middle of the season, and these dudes are practicing. This ain't practice. Practice? This ain't practice. We ain't talking about preseason or a mock league. We talking about a real league in the middle of the season, and these dudes are practicing. This ain't practice. Practice?

Now I understand that it's a game and this is Phantasy Steez, but it's the principle of the overall situation that has my gears grinding. In this league, we had a live in person draft. We went over all the rules together and there is a rule about members being in cahoots with other members to create "super teams". Victor and I were used as an example of this rule because we're friends it would look suspicious if we made a trade proposal. Most owners would probably think we're working together to create this "super team" if there's a such thing in fantasy football. So if Victor and I are trying to make a legitimate trade, it could lead up to our teams getting locked or denied access, but these guys are practicing... practice. We ain't talking about a legitimate trade negotiation, we talking about practice.

Trust me, I understand that it's a game and it's supposed to be fun.To me however, considering the circumstances and situations, we ain't talking about Phantasy Steez, the thing we all love and prepare for and get together for every year and commune and strategize over during the football season. We talking about practice. I think the trade should go through, since some think this is practice. However, the other managers have already decided to vote against the trade because it's just a joke, and majority vote rules, so these guys are going to get away with practice.Victor, I'm sorry that you had to here the Don's version of the practice speech. The other managers probably won't know about it unless the read my blog, which I doubt. But nooga, I'm just saying. We ain't talking about Phantasy Steez... WE TALKING ABOUT PRACTICE! This ain't practice.

Sign and Trade

During the NBA offseason, sometimes teams and players come to an agreement called a sign and trade. In this scenario, an unrestricted free agent will sign with his current team. The team then trades that player just signed to another team. Its a way to make sure you get something for the player leaving your team. I've managed to do this on that Phantasy Steez.

It all started last week which was the first week of byes. I have Aaron Rodgers on about three teams. One team in particular, Rodgers is my starting quarterback and I have Sam Bradford on the bench. I didn't want to start Bradford, and it's a good thing I didn't because Bradford did not do well last week against San Francisco scoring 8 points. Terelle Pryor is also on my bench, I wasn't sure if he was going to play, which he didn't. So I I was perusing around the free agency and for some weird reason Philip Rivers was available. This was shocking to me because all of the fantasy "experts" were talking highly about starting Rivers all week. So I picked him up and to great effect as Rivers had a great fantasy game scoring 27 points for me.

Fast forward to this week. Aaron Rodgers is back so naturally I want him to start. Now I'm looking at my bench and I have Rivers, Pryor and Bradford on my bench. That's way too many quarterbacks. Looking back at free agency, there really isn't anyone worthy of picking up for one of these quarterbacks, so I decided to see about making a trade. I could make an offer for any of these quarterbacks,  but I think I could get the most in return for Rivers. Plus, in case anything should happen to Rodgers, I do still have Pryor and Bradford, and even though they may not be as "elite" as River, I think they can still be product enough to get points.

I made a trade offer based on what I felt I needed on the team and the value of Rivers versus that position, which for some reason I decided I needed a running back. I have Reggie Bush and Ray Rice who are both coming off of injuries. Bush in particular could get hurt again before the end of the season. I also have Bernard Pierce who was just on my team to fill in for Ray Rice. I felt like I needed a more dependable running back. After looking at different running back rankings, I felt I could get away with trading away Rivers for DeMarco Murray. True, Murray has been injured in the past, but this season he looks great and I still think a lot of people are sleeping on him.

It only took a couple of hours before the owner of All i do is WIN accepted the trade offer. He probably thought I was high or something when I sent him the trade offer. Actually I wasn't, I was at work, but if this is what he was thinking, it's exactly what I wanted him to think. Truth of the matter is, I signed a back up quarterback to fill in for Rodgers, signed Rivers, then traded Rivers to a team that has Tom Brady and E.J. Manuel for Murray, who I feel was this guy's best running back. He also has Darren Sproles, Chris Johnson and DeAngelo Williams. I get an insurance policy in case on of my backs get injured. He gets a quarterback who is most likely going to be useless until Brady goes on a bye. In my opinion, coming from a phantasy point of view, I think I win...

Hitting the Panic Button

First of all, I know I haven't been doing such a great job with keeping up. I had some great things to post about too like my boy Victor winning by .02 points, my thoughts on the Trent Richardson trade, and this 8 team league I'm in that started a week late. I know, but my scheduled is more complicated than I can grasp. I'm looking for a new job, I'm trying to finalize things between me and that chick from high school, I'm on the bus, my friends keep me busy, I'm blindly looking for property, plus all the regular fuckery that's involved with being Mr. Nickerson. In fact, I'm so busy that keeping up with my 15 teams is crazy. Not too mention that me resources are limited due to circumstances and situations, so probably about 7 times out of 10 I'm probably adjusting my roster from my phone.

Regardless of how busy I've been, most of my teams have winning records. Unfortunately I do have two teams that are 0-3 which is pretty good considering that I have 15 teams. Also, the team in that 8 team league is 0-2. That's not too bad considering that I'm barely managing 15 teams, but then I start to wonder why. When I look at these three teams, I think all three rosters are good enough to at least be average. For some reason though, none have been able to pick up the W. At this time, I can only point to two main reasons: player inconsistencies and bad management on my behalf.

When I look at these three teams, I noticed that there are a couple of similarities with these teams. First, but not that important, all three of them are Yahoo leagues. Second, and most important, these three teams have a few players in common. These players, Ed Lacy, Tavon Austin, Sam Bradford, Rashard Mendenhall, Tom Brady and Andrew Luck are on two two of the three teams.

Brady and Luck displays both inconsistency and bad team management. Over three weeks Brady has under produced averaging about 16 points a game, but he was projected to average 19 points a game. This makes me think that I probably should've started Luck instead of Brady. Luck has scored more fantasy points than he was projected to in every week except for last week where he 15 points and he was projected to have 16, which still isn't bad. The question though, how do you bench Tom Brady for Andrew Luck? Especially now that the Colts picked up Trent Richardson.

Ed Lacy has been busy in Green Bay, but in week two he suffered a concussion on the first play. That week, he had one carry for 10 yards, which got us 1 point. He didn't pass the NFL's concussion protocol so he didn't play last week. So in the two leagues that I have Lacy, I replaced him with Rashard Mendenhall. Going into week 3, Mendenhall had exceeded expectations in weeks 1 and 2. In week 3 though, the week I needed him to fill in for Lacy, he disappeared... against the Saints. I need someone to fill in for Lacy this week too, but most likely it's not going to be Mendenhall.

I can't really say much about Tavon Austin and Sam Bradford. Austin had one good game in week two, but for the most part he's been on my bench. I have him on many of my teams that are not win less, but with Austin, unfortunately he's been on my bench because I have better receivers on the teams that he is on. Weird part is I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Same thing goes with Bradford. He's been on my bench waiting for my starting quarterback to go on a bye. Coincidentally, I have him starting in a two quarterback league, and that team is 2-1.

There are probably more reasons why these teams are win less, or it could be simply a matter of bad luck. Whichever reason it is, my competitive nature will not stand around and let these team tank out the season. I can probably spend more time with these teams during the week, but I don't want to neglect my other teams just to get a W. I could propose a trade or something, but that could come back to bite me in the ass like the Andre Johnson-Danny Amendola trade has done in a different league. Something has to be done because 0-3, or 0-2, is not a good look.

Stop Roughing With Me

Last week I lost in both in both of my main leagues, Roughing the Picker and Coast2Coast Ballers. While my lost in Coast2Coast Ballers was bearable, the loss in Roughing the Picker has been playing tricks with my mind all week. Out of all of my leagues, this is the main one. We drafted together, in person, not online. There's money and bragging rights on the line. I drafted well, with the exception of my bench. And I still lost. After thinking about it, I realized that even though I drafted well, I made a crucial mistake. You see kids, this is the importance of going over the rules of your league before you draft. Even though we all read over the rules together before we drafted, I totally disregarded two important aspects points wise in this league.

First brain fart is the very first thing listed on the point sheet that we all received at the draft. For every completion, you get a point. Not too much of a big deal, but it should have a major impact on who you draft at quarterback, especially since this is a two quarterback league. My quarterbacks in this league is Matthew Stafford and Cam Newton. There really isn't a problem with Matthews, I think he'll come through with plenty of completions. Newton however is a different story. Now don't get me wrong, I expect Newton to produce plentifully for me in this league, but when it comes to completions I have to question the whole situation. The Carolina Panthers don't have enough quality receivers for Newton to throw to. Steve Smith will get his, but outside of that Cam really doesn't have too many options other than to run the ball. So while Cam is doing his thing, other teams with more reliable receivers are racking up more points because of completions, thus dramatically impacting the scores in this league.

The second thing I missed is a very crucial aspect for this league. This league is a PPR league. I think the reason why I overlooked this is because nowhere on the point/rule sheet does it say anything about PPR. While I was drafting I obviously did not keep this in consideration. Even though I have high quality receivers, I stocked my team with running backs, and not the pass-catching type of running backs. What I should've been doing was stocking my bench with mid-range wide receivers.  Instead I drafted Mark Ingram and Vick Ballard. I've already dropped Ingram.

I'm going to have to resolve this problem immediately if I'm to make it to the playoffs. Bad news is the free agency market in this league sucks. That means I'm going to have to put together a pretty attractive trade package. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of including Alfred Morris in this package, but that's just a thought. Bad thing about trading in this league is the owners are greedy. So I'm going to have to make it an offer that can't be refused...

Get Shorty!

I'm a Don's Don, a man's man, and most importantly, a fantasy football player's fantasy football player. I know when I'm defeated and in this case, even though it's only Monday and there's two more games to go, I got beat this week in Coast2Coast Ballers by Mr. Hindsman. Kudos, Mr. Hindsman. But most of the mistakes I made were a matter of bad management on my behalf and coincidental occurrences. One of these occurrences was none other than Peyton ROCKET LASER ARM Manning!

As we all know by now, Rocket Laser Arm had a career night last Thursday against the Baltimore Ravens. Were you one of the many victims who went up against a team that has Manning? I was. Manning is Mr. Hindsman's starting quarterback. Rocket Laser Arm had 462 yards and 7 touchdowns in a Madden-like game. He scored a whopping 60 points for Mr. Hindsman. How many of your players are you expecting to score 60 points for you? Better yet, how do you come back from a 60 point deficit put up by one player? In Roughing the Picker, Rocket Laser Arm got my boy Victor 105 points. How is Chilli supposed to come back from that?

Besides Rocket Laser Arm proving that he's Rocket Laser Arm, I made a few crucial mistakes trying to outsmart Mr. Hindsman. Mr. Hindsman likes to play quarterbacks at the Offensive Player position. Basically he had three quarterbacks playing against me. I tried to counter this by starting Brandon Weeden, and now that the disaster is done, I'm kicking myself. Somewhere during the draft season, I was convinced that Weeden would get his rep up this year with Norv Turner being the new Offensive Coordinator. Weeden got me an embarrassing -5 points. Meanwhile on my bench, Sam Bradford, a quarterback that I traded for before the season started, had 299 yards with two touchdowns and scored 25 points. My dumb ass had him on the bench, instead of in the second Offensive Player position where I had Eric Decker. Decker was probably the only receiver who didn't take advantage of Rocket Laser Arm. He had only two catches for 39 yards with a few drops, including a drop for a touchdown. I could've started Jordy Nelson instead of Decker, who score 22 points on the bench.

There were some bright spots on my team. Adrian Peterson proved himself worthy of the number one pick racking up 93 rushing yards, 2 rushing touchdowns, 18 receiving yards and 1 receiving touchdown scoring 34 points. A.J. Green also chipped in with 162 receiving yards and two touchdowns scoring 35 points. Clearly, Green is coming for the number one spot when it comes to wide receivers.

Unfortunately, AP and Green's efforts were not enough to take out Mr. Hindsman as there were some not so bright spots on my squad. I wasn't comfortable with starting Ahmad Bradshaw because he's been injured the whole offseason. Bradshaw proved me right having 7 carries for 26 yards. He only got 2 points. I really don't have a viable option at running back on my bench, so this week I'm going to see what I can do through free agency or trades to fix that problem. I'm pretty sure Bradshaw is going to be cool once he is 100%, but right now I can't afford to have him holding down my team. Cam Newton also under performed throwing for 125 yards and one touchdown. Newton also rushed for 157 yards and two touchdowns which made up the difference, but he could've been very much more productive.

Lastly, I screwed up my TE position. I ended up benching Martellus Bennett for Zach Sudfield. That was a huge mistake as Sudfield only had the ball thrown to him once. They're saying now that he pulled a hammy, but I don't care about that. Meanwhile, Bennett was a good fantasy tight end scoring 10 points. But I had him on my bench. Now I have to decide if I'm going ride with Bennett and drop Sudfield, or do I have enough confidence in Bill Belichick to straighten out Sudfield.

To be honest, its always difficult to predict who's going to do what on Week 1. But I wanted this one bad. I talked a lot of shit to Mr. Hindsman and I lost. I might end up getting rewarded the Shittah, which is a league trophy handed out to players who lose by 100 points or more. Right now I'm down by 65 with no players left while Mr. Hindsman has Santana Moss and Michael Vick playing tonight. Well played Mr. Hindsman, but don't go popping bottles just yet. This is only the beginning. You may have won the battle, but the war is far from over... #DonStatus

Saying Goodbye to Andre Johnson

The Fantasy Football season is still young. The NFL season hasn't even begun yet, but many have already drafted teams for fantasy. Currently I have about fourteen teams, which will probably be fifteen teams by the time I'm finished with this post. Many of my teams look somewhat similar because of my draft strategy, but none of my teams look perfectly identical. I did research on players I liked earlier on and during drafting, I tried to balance out my picks depending on my draft position and who was available during a certain round.  The end result, a small number of players being drafted on different teams. Players such as Dwayne Bowe, Le'Veon Bell (who is injured), Matt Forte, and Cam Newton, just to name a few.

In Coast2Coast Ballers, I missed the draft but still ended up with a stunning roster of wide receivers. Andre Johnson was the third receiver on my squad behind A.J. Green and Dez Bryant. I also have Eric Decker, Bowe, and Jordy Nelson. How did this happen? I don't know, I didn't attend the draft.

Many people may have Andre Johnson on their radar during the draft. When I saw I had him on the squad, first thing that came in my mind was to trade him. Even if I would've had a weaker wide receiver squad I would've wanted to trade him. Don't get me wrong, I do still think that Johnson is a dominant receiver, but under the current circumstances and situations, he's a very unattractive fit for any of my teams. Houston is a run first team. Arian Foster dominates that offense and the Texans really only passes the ball when they need to. Matt Schuab has failed to make it to elite quarterback status, which is one of the reasons why the Texans run the ball so much. Plus, outside of Johnson, the rest of the receiver corps for the Texans are mediocre. Then I start to think about Johnson's most potent flaw. The man stays injured. He has an extensive injury history for the past four seasons where he either plays injured or he sits out. Even when he plays injured, he is very much slowed down and it majorly affects Schuab, and me as his fantasy owner.

I knew I could make a trade look appealing with Johnson, but I really didn't know who I want to get for him. As I continued to look at my roster, I noticed I also had Ben Roethlisberger who I've won a championship with before, but that I was like 6 years ago. Plus, I don't like the Steeler's offensive line, and I'm not sold on the Steeler's receivers. So I came up with the ingenious idea to include him in the package. I knew I wanted Sam Bradford, so I looked him up and he was on Cephus' team. Cephus also had Danny Amendola, who I was not too keen on until I had the chance to check him out in a couple of preseason games. I'm convinced that as long as Tom Brady has someone to throw it to, he can make me look like Wes Welker. I proceeded with putting together a package with Andre Johnson and Ben Roethlisberger for Danny Amendola and Sam Bradford which I had believed was a good deal and it seemed as if Cephus was getting the better deal out of the trade.

It didn't take long for Cephus to accept the deal and about three days later, Amendola and Bradford came to my team. It could've been a mistake because hands down Johnson is a way better receiver than Amendola and Roethlisberger has a proven win record that Bradford does not have. The move could come back to bite me in the ass. This is phantasy steez though. It could very well pay off.

Reinstated Part Two: They Must've Forgot

From 2000 to 2002, every once in a while I spent a significant amount at time as a Biology student at Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. While at Dillard my freshman year I stayed at Straight Hall.   I hung out with this particular groups of guys. Nothing very special about them, they were just regular guys. They went to class and just chilled afterwards, not like all nerdy or overzealous about college life.

After Dillard, one way we all keep in touch with each other is through fantasy football. Our league, Coast2Coast Ballers are made up of players representing from all over the country. This is probably one of my favorite leagues because of the bond between friends and football, and the beef. We talk a lot of friendly or unfriendly trash to each other throughout the season. Bragging rights and fantasy dignity are two key treasures that we all value in this league. I got a lot of haters in this league, including Shorty who for here on out I will refer to as Mr. Hindsman, Croix who I don't know if he's playing this year or not, and one of my favorite short shit talkers, Mr. Rhines.

I borrowed this from the Commish...

Outside of fantasy football, I've been through a lot with these guys. From staying in Straight hall, spades and dominoe tournaments, getting wasted, doing Mardi Gras, watching Dragonball Z, getting robbed, Midnight Racing, and all kinds of other fuckery that comes with living in New Orleans. But when it comes to fantasy football, they must've forgot...

One thing that makes this league interesting is the lineup and the points distribution. For one, you team defense can either make or break you. Unlike in standard leagues, in Coast2Coast Ballers your team defense can rack up triple digit points. Second, this league utilizes the elusive Offensive Player position, where you can play any offensive player including quarterback in this spot. Potentially, you can have three quarterbacks playing for you that week. Also, this league has a Head Coach position. This position can have little or major impact for your team. If your Head Coach's team blows out an opponent, that can lead to major points. If you Head Coach's team gets blown out, you can get negative points.

I haven't really played in this league in a while. Last year, I had a team but I didn't manage it. I had inherited the team like in week two and I was already involved playing in other leagues. The year before that I don't know what happened, I don't even know if there was a league that year. And in previous years things got all confusing with dues being paid. This  year however, I've been granted "reinstatement" from the Commissioner and it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I had truly

The draft was this past Sunday. I had the number one pick and I thought I could get into the draft, but it started while I was in church. Afterwards, we went out for dinner because it was my grandfather's birthday. No excuses though, my squad still came out pretty decent.

QB: Cam Newton
RB: Adrian Peterson
RB: Ahmad Bradshaw
WR: A.J. Green
WR: Dez Bryant
WR: Andre Johnson
TE: Martellus Bennett
OP: Eric Decker
OP: Dwayne Bowe
Defense: Packers
K: Justin Tucker
HC: Bengals Coach
Bench: Jordy Nelson
Bench: Giovani Bernard
Bench: Rashard Mendenhall
Bench: Andre Brown
Bench: Ben Roethlisberger
Bench: Dwayne Allen
Bench: Ed Dickson
Bench: Phil Dawson

When I got home later that evening and checked out my team, I was quite surprised who well my autodrafted team came out. It was an advantage that I had the number one pick which landed me AP. Somehow I was able to get Dez Bryant and A.J. Green. I have a stable of receivers. But i still spotted some weaknesses. I have Ahmad Bradshaw, who I think will get hurt eventually. My running backs on the bench could replace Bradshaw, but I want to wait until after week 1 to see how they perform.

Next thing I noticed was that I only had one quarterback on the bench and it was Ben Roethlisberger. Even though I have won a championship in this league with him, that was like six years ago and the Steelers' offensive line sucks ass this year. I went ahead and dropped Phil Dawson for Brandon Weeden because there isn't a need to have two kickers on the bench, and I think Weeden is going to have a much better year than last season.

Then I took a look at Andre Johnson. A few years ago, Johnson and Megatron were going in the first round. Lately, Johnson has fallen off due to injury and Arian Foster. Plus, I don't trust Matt Schaub to put up decent number in a run oriented offense. I knew I could use Johnson as trade bait, so I put together a trade of Johnson and Roethlisberger to for Sam Bradford and Danny Amendola. With my stable of receivers, I think Amendola will fit in well and I expect for Bradford to have a career season. If I would've been thinking correctly, I would've included a team defense in that trade, but I'll figure out some way to deal with the Packers defense later, a strategy I'll talk about later when the season is underway.

Autopick Disaster

By the time the season begins, I'll probably have anywhere between fifteen and twenty teams. Although I will be blogging about all my teams, I'm not going to post up every team's roster before the season starts, just the ones that intrigues me the most.

As I stated previously, I like to join random leagues to prepare for my main leagues instead of participating in mock drafts. Roughing the Picker and Coast2Coast Ballers are both two quarterbacks leagues, so even though I have some standard leagues, I do try to join other two quarterback leagues as well.

One day once I was at work grinding hard in the warehouse when my boss asked me if I could go inside and help out my co-workers in the office for a couple of hours. I took it as an opportunity to draft another team since I was going to be stuck at my desk. I went to my desk and scheduled to join an ESPN league called Criminal Minds. This custom league has two quarterbacks, two running backs, one running back/wide receiver, one wide receiver, two wide receiver/tight end, two offensive players (not flex players), one defensive player, one defense/special teams, and one kick plus your bench.

It was ten minutes before draft time and I was sitting at my desk patiently waiting. All of sudden, something happened. My boss came to my desk and alerted me that I was supposed to be in the warehouse helping the shipping department catch up instead of being in the office helping them catch up. That meant I had to leave my desk, and there's no computer with internet access in the shipping department like there is in the receiving department where I usually work. I had to miss the draft! What made matters even worse, I didn't edit any pre-draft rankings or anything. So even though this was a two quarterback league, autopick didn't consider it and went with the default rankings which consists mostly of running backs.

After missing the draft and inheriting an autopicked squad, this is what my team looks like:

QB: Sam Bradford
QB: Kevin Kolb
RB: Marshawn Lynch
RB: LeSean McCoy
RB/WR: Stevan Ridley
WR: Marques Colston
WR/TE: Greg Jennings
WR/TE: Dwayne Bowe
OP: David Wilson
OP: Lamar Miller
DP: Chad Greenway
Defense: Cincinatti Bengals
K: Matt Prater
Bench: Shane Vereen
Bench: Giovanni Bernard
Bench: Kenny Britt
Bench: Bryce Brown
Bench: DeAndre Hopkins
Bench: E.J. Manual
Bench: Kenbrell Thompkins

The squad looks good, but there are a couple of things that bothers me about this team. First of course are my quarterbacks. Of all the quarterbacks in the league, autopick got me Sam Bradford and Kevin Kolb. Now with Bradford, I have him as one of my sleeper quarterbacks who I think will be much better than last season. However, with Kolb, I'm not expecting to get the starting nod come week 1, and if he does I'm not expecting him to remain the starter all season long. Not to mention that as of writing this, Kolb is out with a severe concussion that they say could be career-ending. I'm thinking about either negotiating a trade, or picking up Terrelle Pryor.

Secondly, I don't like what I have at the two Offensive Player positions. With David Wilson, he has a lot of hype right now, but do we really know what he's going to bring to the table? Then with Lamar Miller, he hasn't lived up to preseason expectations and could lose touches to Daniel Thomas.

Lastly, as with many of my teams, I don't like my bench. Shane Vereen, could come in as that third down back, Giovanni Bernard could become that starter, Kenny Britt hasn't been the same since he got injured a few years ago, Bryce Brown will have to come behind LeSean McCoy, DeAndre Hopkins... I don't really know who he is. EJ Manuel and Kenbrell Thompkins are two guys I picked up after the draft for Randy Bullock and Ryan Broyles respectively.

I see I'm going to have to make some moves. As I said earlier, I might have to pick up Terrelle Pryor who looks to be the number one starter for the Raiders as Matt Flynn has not lived up to the preseason hype. EJ Manuel could do some damage if he can stay healthy enough to stay on the field. And if Flynn does when the starting job, I can't sleep on him. I might also be looking at trading for Carson Palmer, Brandon Weeden, or Alex Smith. Yes sir, in this league I'm going to have to get my general manager rep up for sure.

My Other 2 QB League

Preparing for Roughing the Picker, I participated in two other random leagues that had two starting quarterbacks. I joined an ESPN league called Teenage Newton Ninja Turtles. By coincidence, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my shit when I was kid. I had all four action figures, a towel and soap set, and a variety of little T-shirts. Also, I had two of the three movies they came out with on VHS.

So this is how my squad, the LA DonSquad, looks:

QB: Cam Newton
QB: Matthew Stafford
RB: Arian Foster
RB: Darren McFadden
RB: Reggie Bush
WR: Hakeem Nicks
WR: Dwayne Bowe
WR: Anquan Boldin
WR: Sidney Rice
TE: Antonio Gates
Defense: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
K: Rob Bironas
Bench: Johnathan Stewart
Bench: Ben Tate
Bench: Jared Cook
Bench: Phillip Rivers
Bench: Cordarrelle Patterson
IR: Jeremy Maclin

A few things I want to point out about this league and my squad. One, not only is this a two quarterback league, but there's three running backs and four wide receivers. This made the draft a lot more interesting because some of the guys I have starting in this league would be on my bench in standard leagues, especially at wide receiver.

Second, I have the same quarterbacks in this league starting as I do in Roughing the Picker. Trust me, this was pure coincidence, I drafted this league like a week before we had the draft for Roughing the Picker. Crazy thing about it though is that I didn't go quarterback quarterback with my first two picks in this league. My first pick was Arian Foster at number three. After the first round, I panicked because I noticed that except for the three guys who wasn't at the draft and had autopick by default, everyone else selected quarterbacks. So when my turn came up in the second, I eagerly picked up the best available quarterback available which was Cam Newton and in the third I took Matthew Stafford. True, I could've picked up Andrew Luck, but for some reason I'm not really feeling him this season.

Lastly, I was feeling good with my picks, but about an hour after the draft Jeremy Maclin got hurt in practice. Practice? We ain't even talking about the real game. We talking about practice! With the arrival of Chip Kelly, I was expecting Maclin to have a very good season, not to mention that Maclin is in a contract year, scheduled to be a free agent at the end of the season.

Interestingly enough though, this league has the exclusive IR position, where you can place an injured player on IR to pick up a free agent without having to drop that injured player. I cureently have Maclin on IR, but in this case placing Maclin on IR is pointless as he most likely is done for the rest of the season. Most likely I'll be dropping him soon. I did however pick up Kenbrell Thompkins who as of writing this is expected to be the number two X receiver for the Patriots. I probably will be looking for someone else to pick up just in case, but hopefully in this WR deep league, Thompkins can be efficient enough for phantasy success.

Reinstated: Part 1

There's two leagues that I always look forward to when it comes to fantasy football. The first one is Coast2Coast Ballers, which I plan on sharing later as the draft date comes closer. The second is Roughing the Picker, which used to be called something else, but that's not important. What is important is in these two leagues I actually know the guys instead of them being random leagues.

Roughing the Picker is a league that my boy Victor got me in. Its pretty cool for a variety of reasons. One, there's dues. I'm still not sure how it breaks down as it was explained to us, but dues make the game a lot more serious. Second, there's a trophy. And last but not least, the draft is in person. A live in-person draft is something every fantasy football person should experience. Getting together with the guys, drafting your players, yelling obscenities because someone picked the player your planning on drafting, drinking beer and eating. Yeah, it doesn't get much better.

This year the draft was held at Buffalo Wild Wings. When Victor and I arrived, I saw a few familiar faces and some new faces. First thing I said to the Commissioner was "Long time no see." Then it dawned on me that I haven't played in this league for a couple of years. A joke went around that either I had been suspended for using performance enhancing drugs, or I had a season ending ACL injury which kept me sidelined for the past two seasons. I preferred the suspension theory as it sounded a little more exciting than being injured.

Even though you can get suspended from the league, this wasn't the case at all. The first year I played in the league, everything went fine. The next year, I was going to play in the league. However due to circumstances and situations, I decided to withdraw from the league. That year sucked because I didn't play in Coast2Coast Ballers either. The year after that, which was last year, I was ready to rejoin the league when the Commissioner asked if I would withdraw due to an overflow of players. I really didn't want to, but at the same time I really didn't have the cash to pay the dues, so I obliged. I suspended myself so someone else could play. I almost opted not to play this year also, but my boy Victor was determined to make sure I was back in action. Thanks Vic. Thus, I'm back. Vindicated. Reinstated. Ready to kick ass and take names, making sure I come out victorious and Victor comes in 2nd again!

Getting back on track, the draft was interesting for several reasons. Reinstated, it felt good the get out and get with the fellas. The venue was something new. We were in a seperate room with about four TVs with different games on, and we had our waitress, Amber, a cute black chick. Thought I could try to pull, but for some reason I was distracted by the headache that came all of a sudden. Plus, as Victor pointed out, it seemed like she was the type that was into white guys.

Well, this is how my team turned out:

QB: Matthew Stafford
QB: Cam Newton
WR: A.J. Green
WR: Victor Cruz
WR: Eric Decker
RB: Matt Forte
RB: Alfred Morris
TE: Kyle Rudolph
W/T: Lance Moore
W/R: Le'Veon Bell
K: Mason Crosby
Defense: Chicago Bears
Bench: Mark Ingram
Bench: Vick Ballard
Bench: Stevie Johnson
Bench: Rob Gronkowski
Bench: Geno Smith
Bench: Johnathan Franklin
(Any thoughts on my squad?)

In this draft, I got the last pick. That kind of sucked, but at the same time it was kind of great. This is a two quarterback league and I expected most of the league to draft quarterbacks in the first two rounds. The advantage is in a snake draft, I was going to be able to pick back to back.

As expected, Aaron Rodgers went number one, as he should have. But things got interesting because the players with the number 2 and 7 draft picks were not present, which called for us to draft players for the two absentees. Also as expected, 7 out of 9 teams selected quarterbacks. I knew I wanted to use the 10th and 11th pick on quarterbacks, and the first one a selected was Cam Newton. For the 11th, I could've drafted RG3 but I already had one dual threat quarterback, and Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, and Philip Rivers had already been picked. I decided to go with Matthew Stafford, who I think will have a very good season with the addition of Reggie Bush and of course he still has Calvin Johnson.

After the first two rounds, I went with my usual draft strategy with what players were left. Using the advantage of being able to pick up two players at the same time, I picked up quality players to fill up my starting lineup. When it came to my bench, I got disengaged. It became boring to me a little bit. Victor was pissing me off because he started using my cheat sheet. Also, I kept having to go to the restroom, which luckily was right outside of the room we were in. Also, I was trying to see what was up with Amber, our waitress. Lastly, I usually drink Newcastle, but lately I've been drinking weaker Bud Ice. After my first Newcastle, I was too relaxed.

On the way home, I was thinking about my squad and I was satisfied, but talking with Victor I realized I kind of overlooked something very important. You see, in this league, you can get major points from kick and punt returns. I thought that having Chicago's Defense was good enough because special teams falls under Chicago's Defense and Devin Hester is focusing primarily on being a returner this season. We were eating tacos and Victor was talking about the players he drafted like Bush, Jacoby Jones, TY Hilton... all return guys. It dawned on me that if these guys had big games in the return department, it would pay off for him big time. On the other hand, what if they don't have stellar games. Can an individual put up consistent numbers just returning the ball? What if one of his guys have a horrible game returning, and they don't produce catching the ball or running the ball? What if all that player does is return the ball, where kick returns don't happen as much as regular plays. How much production could you get out of a player who stat line looked something like 2 catches, 21 yards, 40 yards returning? I'm just saying, it sounds good in theory, but at the same time, it could backfire.

Overly Anxious, or Bad Drafting

As I said in the last post, I usually don't like to do mock drafts because other participants don't really take it seriously. So I join random leagues to prepare for my draft. The first league I joined is FF2013 on espn.com where my team name is LA DonFamily. This is how my roster looks:

QB: Drew Brees
RB: Trent Richardson
RB: Darren McFadden
WR: Demaryius Thomas
WR: Mike Wallace
TE: Kyle Rudolph
Flex: Le'Veon Bell
D/ST: Chicago Bears
K: Steven Hauschka
Bench: Dwayne Bowe
Bench: DeSean Jackson
Bench: Vick Ballard
Bench: Michael Vick
Bench: Dustin Keller
Bench: Santonio Holmes
Bench: Fred Jackson

I did this draft at work in which I don't know if I was distracted by other things going on at work or if I was just overly anxious about drafting. I think it's the latter. I had the number five pick and I decided to draft Trent Richardson. After the pick, I thought about it and I started doubting my pick. Richardson had an above average rookie season on a team that pretty much sucked. However, I was starting to doubt that he could have the same output as last season.

I wanted to make sure I swung for the fences on my next pick to make up for correctly or incorrectly drafting Richardson with the fifth overall pick, so on my next pick I drafted Drew Brees and in the third round I drafted Demaryius Thomas.

I had thought that I had somewhat redeemed myself but in the fourth round I wanted to draft another quality running back. While I was trying to salvage my mental on the draft, everyone else were picking up running backs which resulted in many of the backs I had on my radar being already drafted. I ended up picking up Darren McFadden which sounded sexy at the time, but then I had an epiphany of sort. Run DMC has usually gotten injured at some point of every season since he's been in the league. I should've thought about this personally as I've had him on at least one team for the past three or four years.

At that moment, I felt as if my running back stable was the weakest link of my squad. I decided I would spend the rest of my draft trying to pick up viable role players to fill the void. With my remaining picks, I drafted Mike Wallace, Le'Veon Bell who is a rookie that is expected to have a good season, Dwayne Bowe, DeSean Jackson who is one of my sleepers, Vick Ballard, Kyle Rudolph, the Bears D, Michael Vick who is another of my sleeper picks, Dustin Keller another sleeper, Santonio Holmes even though he's hurt, Fred Jackson and then any kicker for the last pick.

At first I thought my team was okay except for my running backs. After a few days though, I began to reevaluate my running backs and I thought even though I didn't get a Ray Rice or a Doug Martin, I still was able to pick up some reliable backs who could do some damage given the right circumstances and situations. Even though my boy Richardson plays with a sorry team, he did outperform once. This is the same Trent Richardson from Alabama right? Plus Vick Ballard could be considered a productive sleeper, right? And you can't rule out the potential of Le'Veon Bell...right? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.