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.