How It Went Down

By now the fantasy football season is about half way complete, if you don't included the playoffs. This is a very important aspect to keep in mind, especially if you're record is worse than 3-3. Now, before I go any further, some of you readers who are still coming to this page is probably asking yourselves where the $#@! has he been these two months? Posting out of no where when it's about to be week 7? Well, to be honest, I was about to give up on writing and finish up my biology degree. But something weird happened. Apparently some of you guys like my blog and sent me e-mails about returning. Thanks for that. Secondly, I had to write a paper for my Psychology class and it was so seamless, so easy, so... it just flowed. It took me like 15 minutes to crank out 1000 words. It put a smile on myself. Plus, even though I hadn't been taking fantasy football as seriously as I should have, I did something for the first time, and I had to share.

For the first time, I got my feet wet and tried daily fantasy sports. To be more specific, I tried FanDuel for the first time. I was a little skeptical about the whole daily fantasy sports situation from the jump, even though I had heard about it a few years ago. The reasons being is for one I didn't like the salary cap game. I had played it a few times back in the early 2000s but not in a daily fantasy format. Secondly, I didn't want to get caught up in losing money playing daily fantasy. For a long time I had felt that Daily Fantasy was kind of like playing the lotto or something, or entering into Publisher's Clearinghouse or something like that. Even though it had always been in the back of my mind to do it, I let it slip by for a while. This year however, it was very difficult to pass up. FanDuel and Draft Kings both upped their marketing efforts this season. Every commercial is either for FanDuel or Draft Kings. Not to mention, I had some peer pressure too. So I decided to give it a go. For my first week, I sucked dramatically, but now that I got my feet wet and I have an idea of what I winning team looks like, I've become even more intrigued. I entered at the last minute, but this week I'm going to make sure I do a little more research so next week hopefully I can win something.

Speaking of research, that's something I definitely haven't been doing. Usually just like everyone else, I'm on different websites, watching or listening to different fantasy football podcasts/shows, reading Matthew Berry's Love/Hate column, downloading apps and all kinds of things to make sure my lineups are good for the upcoming week. I've glanced at Berry's column a couple of times this season, but mainly for entertainment as I've developed a habit of not paying attention to these so-called experts. Apparently, I'm no expert either, so I should start doing a little more research on a weekly basis... not only for informational purposes, but also to network with other fantasy football people. There's so many though, including this blog, to choose from. I'll probably stick with the mainstream sites such as ESPN, Yahoo and NFL.com, but if any of you who are still reading have any good links feel free to let me know.

I usually talk about some teams that I'm currently running and while I do intend to continue doing so, I won't cover every league. Just Roughing the Picker and the other one... the one with my friends from Dillard whose league name I can't recall... oh yeah, it's Coast2Coast Ballers. Anyhoo, In Roughing the Picker this week, I had a fabulous trade set up to receive Peyton Manning and send over Brandon Marshall and Latavius Murray. Now, I know Manning hasn't been "Rocket Laser Arm" this week, but I believed that when it cam down to it, and Denver was ever behind, it would be Peyton Time. That hasn't happened yet and this could be the reason why my peers decided to veto the trade. No one has come clean and admitted they were the ones who vetoed the trade, but they way I see it, it may have looked like I was giving up too much for a declining Manning. However, I feel I was getting the better of the trade because regardless Manning is still Peyton Manning, top 5 quarterback in the league. Plus, even though Marshall has been consistent, Murray has not, so I thought it was a fair enough trade. When the trade was vetoed Saturday night, it threw me off because Manning was supposed to be on my team by the 12:01 a.m. Sunday morning. The trade was vetoed, and I ended up having to pick up Colin Kaepernick. The Kaepernick pick actually worked out, but I still ended up losing by 5 freaking points.

The other league Coast2Coast Ballers, I'm in a 3-way tie for third place. This league is funny because I started off 4-0. A couple of weeks ago my Samsung Note 3 was stolen and this shut down my whole operation. I rely on my Note 3 for everything, including hotspot as I do not pay for internet service in my home. Without my Note 3 I was helpless... well not totally because I could always jump on when at work, but at work I'm unbelievably busy working the graveyard shift. I'm not trying to use this as an excuse, but things haven't been right ever since. Mr. Hindsman, my fantasy football rival, made a comment about me going on a serious losing streak, and I hate to say it but he might be right. I've lost the last two weeks putting me at 4-2. The problem? I think it's I have too many Green Bay Packers on my squad. I got Rodgers, Lacy, Cobb, and Richard Rodgers who I should've benched this past week. In fact, everyone except for Rodgers could've been benched. Cobb isn't taking advantage of Jordy Nelson being injured, and Lacy is injured himself. I'll make some adjustments, but these studs are turning in duds early on in the season. The Packers have a bye this coming week, but I'm going to have to figure out what to do with these dudes. Richard Rodgers is most likely gone, but I'll most likely hang on to Cobb and Lacy... for now.

Don't Sleep

So I was supposed to post this yesterday, but when I'm at home people bother me. When I'm at work people bother me. So, this post is a day late. If  was working for a major publication, this would be totally unacceptable, my editor would probably demote me to mail room clerk or something, and I would end up a starving writer. I got to grind harder. Excuse the pre-rant, just a little vexed. Yeah, that's it. Vexed.

Anyway, something rare happened yesterday... I mean Sunday. Well, rare might be a little overkill because it might not be as rare as it once was at the beginning of the season. Unusual, yeah, I'll go with something unusual happened yesterday... I mean Sunday. I got to watch some NBA action. Now that football season is near completion, the NBA puts games on regular TV on Sundays. Sadly, this is how I will get to watch some games until my diabolical plan reveals itself. Not only am I going to be able to watch games but these are nationally televised games which usually produces a good match up. Yesterday, I mean Sunday, I was treated to the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Miami Heat in a "NBA Finals rematch" followed by the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the New York Knicks.

I was quite interested to see both games because I had players from both games on my fantasy basketball
team. In my main league, The Syndicate, I didn't have any players in these two games, but in my back up league which I randomly joined and I didn't even name the team, I had players from the Heat, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, and from the Lakers, Jodie Meeks and Nick Young aka Swaggy P.

Now here's where it gets interesting. I don't have cable or internet at the house so I rely heavily on my Galaxy Note 3 for just about everything. My Note 3's battery life is stupendous. I can have it in frequent use and still get about 10-12 hours battery life. If I'm just idle with it or using it occasionally, I can make it last for about 20-28 hours without needing to charge it. Of course these estimates are exaggerated, but point is my phone lasts longer than yours. This weekend, I left my charger at work. This created an interesting situation because the Note 3 has a very unique looking charger. I doesn't take the standard micro USB plug that most Samsung phones take. The plug for the Note 3 looks like two different plugs in one.

Galaxy Note 3 Charger Plug

On Saturday, I came up with the great idea to use an external battery charger that I had for my last defective phone where the port on the phone was broken. This worked but I had two problems, first it took forever to charge just the battery and then the second time around I ended up breaking the charger. So yesterday morning, I mean Sunday morning, I needed to charge my phone again and I figured if I could just use the standard micro USB charger in the section that looks like a micro USB port, if that makes any sense. It worked!! I love this phone/mini tablet. It was right before the first tip off when I discovered my old charger would work, but I figured I would just let it charge without turning on my phone because I had a feeling it would take longer to charge with the old charger, which it did. Also, even though I had Bosh and Wade on my team, I figured that I had them starting. Plus, with Wade and his current knee situation, I wasn't too worried if he was in the game or out. Lastly, I low key didn't want to be bothered, but that's another story for another day.

I had Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade on the bench Sunday

I was wrong. I had both Bosh and Wade on the bench. Sad part about it, I didn't turn my phone on until after the game. My assumption was wrong, I made an ass of myself. Coming of the bench, Wade's stats were below mediocre at best. Bosh had a decent game with 24 points and 5 rebounds. At least I had him in the game on Thursday when he had 31 points and 6 rebounds against the Lakers. That wouldn't be enough though as I ended up losing in this stat category league 2-7 where I lacked in field goal %. free throw %, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and turnovers. If anything, I could've used Bosh yesterday to get a better field goal and free throw percentage. I definitely slept on Bosh, who has been having above average games since Wade only plays every three games. Bosh is taking advantage on that "Y'all Must've Forgot" steez.

The next game was the Lakers vs. the Knicks, which I thought as a Laker fan we had a chance to win. To me, the only difference between these two teams was that the Lakers play in the Kung Fu Strong West and the Knicks play in the East where with a losing record is good enough for a playoff spot... Well, not for the Knicks. But Melo was coming off of a 63 point game and he followed that up with 35 points against the Lakers. Meeks kind of did his job scoring 24 points but the Lakers' leading scorer Swaggy P only had 13 points. I'm not sure what exactly happened, I fell asleep during the game.

I got blew out

Even though I was able to retain first place, I lost badly last week. I had always assumed that I needed to upgrade at the center position with rebounding and blocks kind of like I need to upgrade that position in The Syndicate. However, losing 2-7 tells me that it's not just rebounding and blocks. While many of the the of the categories I lost in where by small margins, the one that concerns me the most is the assist category. There was a 35 point differential in the this category. When I look at my guards, I don't have many superstars at the position outside of Wade, who as I mentioned earlier is not playing every game. Out of all the guards I have though, the only other point guard I have is Jamal Crawford. The rest are all shooting guards who are also eligible to play small forward.

Once again I slept. You see, I had Jordan Crawford on my squad two weeks ago when he was still playing with the Boston Celtics and starting at point guard. In the middle of the week he got traded to the Golden State Warriors with the return of Rajon Rondo. I dropped Crawford because I had a feeling that his production would drop coming off the bench. Where I messed up is replacing him. I picked up Meeks to replace Crawford which sounded good at the time, but Meeks doesn't play point. From a scoring standpoint it was a good pickup, but from an assist point of view it was a horrible decision considering my lack of point guards.

So now it looks like I have to look for a guard, a point guard in specific to get my rep up. I'll be looking but if you have anyone in mind let me know. Leave a comment or e-mail or something, because I as you can see, I really don't know what I'm doing.

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.