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.

The Draft

By now many of you are preparing your game plan for drafting your Fantasy Football teams or you may have already drafted. The draft can either make or break your team. Draft well, and your team could pretty much manage itself. Draft poorly and you could find yourself desperately searching the free agency for a viable fill in on a weekly basis. In order to avoid drafting nonproductive players, a lot of people participate in mock drafts. I personally don't like mock drafts because some people don't take it seriously because its not a real draft, just a practice draft. So what I do is a join random leagues to prepare for my main league which hasn't drafted yet. I thought I share with you some things that I noticed in this year's draft.

Now before I continue, let me express that I am not fantasy football guru or expert. I can not and will not guarantee you that anything I post about Fantasy Football is a sure thing. I cannot predict who will have a breakout game or season. I cannot help you with your lineup. I do mess up. I'm just Marcus Nickerson. Some people call me Don Spook, not because I have multiple personalities or anything like that, not because I'm mafia or gang related, but it's the respect that many of my friends have for me. I'm just a regular guy who plays fantasy football, just like you, and I thought it would be cool to share my THOUGHTS, OPINIONS and EXPERIENCE on the game.

The first two rounds of this year's fantasy football draft are the two most intriguing rounds to me. In most of the drafts I've participated in already, its 97% clear that Adrian Peterson is the undisputed #1 overall draft pick. The only occasion where this hasn't happened is in leagues that start two quarterbacks, where in most cases its Aaron Rodgers who takes the honor as #1 draft pick. After the number one pick, the rest of round 1 mainly consist of running backs such as Marshawn Lynch, Doug Martin, Arian Foster and Ray Rice, just to name a few. The only exception is Aaron Rodgers who usually goes late in the first or in the second, or Megatron Calvin Johnson, who vouches for himself. In two quarterback leagues, most quarterbacks are taking in the first two rounds by players, except for those slutty players who must have their favorite player on their roster.

In the third round, you begin to see the rest of the top tier wide receivers get drafted like Andre Johnson, Demariyus Thomas, AJ Green and Brandon Marshall. Starting quarterbacks are also still in the mix. The third round is the highest that I've seen a tight end go, and that tight end being Jimmy Graham. The rest of the tight end group is usually about fifth or sixth round, depending on the flow of the draft.

I can't really say where in the draft do Defenses start getting picked up because while players were selecting defenses, I was  hooking up my bench with back up running backs and receivers. In most drafts that I've participated in this year, I've drafted my defense towards the end, unless I noticed that a Defense like the New Orleans Saints have been drafted and its only like round 6, which lets me know that other players have already drafted way better defenses. In all the drafts this year, I've picked my kicker last.

Every league is different, but these are just some common patterns I've seen so far having participated in about five drafts already. Later, I'll break down my teams from the leagues that I've already drafted and talk more about the two leagues that I haven't drafted yet.