The Difference Between Making and Not Making the Playoffs

I have asthma, and depending on who you ask it's really bad asthma or it's not that bad but when it hits it's devastating. Last weekend my asthma kicked in and I was forced to go to the hospital. I watched most of the Saints/Steelers game before I left, but that was the only game I was able to see. I spent the rest of my Sunday and most of my Monday in the emergency room where I was placed on 24 hour observation. Yeah, my asthma gets that bad. Anyway, being stuck in a room with nothing to do gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of things. I was thinking about my overall success this fantasy football season and prior to being in the hospital I had pretty much written this season off as not a very good one. I only did five teams this year and I had teams not going to the playoffs, and it bothered me a little bit. I was thinking about my teams that didn't make the playoffs and I noticed that these two teams had one thing in common. The two teams that I did not make the playoffs with, I did not draft these teams.





8th place in the consolation bracket in Roughing the Picker

When I first started this blog, my first two posts were specifically about drafting. In the first post, The Draft, I mentioned that if you draft well your team can pretty much manage itself. This season, I think I've proven that theory with the two teams that I didn't draft myself. I missed two drafts this season both due to technical difficulty, if that's what you want to call it. The first draft I missed was in my most competitive league, Roughing the Picker. In this league we have a live in person draft, which if you haven't been in one of these leagues you should find one to join. It's makes fantasy football way better than online drafts where you don't get to meet your opponents. Anyway, the draft was held in California, but I was stuck in Alabama and I wasn't able to attend. My boy Victor committed to drafting my team for me, and even though I appreciate the effort, I was not excited when I saw the team drafted for me. We actually got into a friendly argument about the quarterback he drafted for me, Cam Newton. I didn't like the make up of this team all season long and because of it I know I made some bad moves trying to improve the team. Overall, right now I'm in eighth place and I missed the playoffs. I'm in the consolation bracket right now fighting not to come in last place which has a consequence of paying the third place winner.

The other league I missed the draft in was in Victor's friend's league. Victor had asked me if I had wanted to join the league and I had accepted. About a week later, after I had accepted the invite, Victor informs me that there was a $50 buy-in which I wasn't willing to pay. So I had told Victor to get me out of the league, and he decided he wasn't going to participate either. The next week I get a phone call from Victor saying he hadn't talked to his friend about dropping us from the league and that we had drafted teams. The cold part about it is he actually participated in the draft while I was thinking I was dropped. So now I had this team that I didn't fully commit to and it was a pretty good team for an auto drafted team, but I just was not interested in properly managing it. I started out strong, but after Nick Foles got hurt/benched my team hit a downward spiral. I'm currently in seventh place missing the playoffs and competing in the consolation bracket.


The three teams that did make the playoffs, I drafted myself. They were all online drafts which agreed with my schedule. I had made it a point to attend these drafts because I wanted to guarantee a good season in these leagues, which were all managed by fellow classmates from Dillard University. In one league, Coast2Coast Ballers, I dominated the draft getting just about every player I wanted. That was due largely to the fact that maybe only 4-6 players actually participated in the draft. Everyone else auto drafted, so when it was my turn, I had many options every pick. When you auto draft, your basically going off of a list that is pre-determined by some "fantasy expert." However when you draft yourself, you do your homework and you pick the players you feel comfortable with. I'm currently second in Coast2Coast Ballers, and even though the playoffs doesn't start until week 14, I'm pretty sure I'll remain playoff bound.



This is the original team I drafted in Coast2Coast Ballers

The last two leagues, who are managed by my boy Mike, are interesting leagues. The first league which was reopened from last season, only has four players in it which meant everyone was automatically headed for the playoffs. All four of us participated in the draft and every team is ridiculously good, not to mention the free agency is unbelievable. However, the team I drafted finished the regular season in first place, and I'm pretty confident I can beat the other three teams to win the league. The other league has fourteen teams in it, which is very difficult to manage. I participated in the draft, but it was challenging as I was arguing with my then girlfriend now ex at the time. However, my squad turned out to be pretty decent. Even though I finished the regular season in fifth place, that team which I drafted is playoff bound, unlike the two teams that I didn't draft.
The draft is probably the most important aspect of your fantasy football teams. Now I see why my boy Michael Smith from ESPN is so adamant when it come to drafting teams. When you auto draft, you're not really taking control of your team. You don't know what you're going to get. When you draft your team, not only are you more comfortable with your team, but you have a better chance at success. As always, you can leave comments on this blog, or you can hit me up on google+ at +Marcus Nickerson , twitter = @donofalldons. Oh, and you google+ users, don't forget to +1 my posts.

Phantasy Resurrection

PhantasySteez came to life in late August with the beginning of the fantasy football season. It was young, fresh and full of ambition delivering compelling content on a consistent basis. Once football season was over, PhantasySteez got slowed down, like it was sick or something. The fantasy basketball season brought forth some good moments, but it was obvious that the Steez was dealing with a serious illness that affected quality and production. By the end of the fantasy basketball season, it was like PhantasySteez was on it's death bed, struggling to breathe. It produced one last entry about a month ago pertaining to fantasy baseball. That post promised more consistency and content, however nothing has come of it since, and PhantasySteez kinda... died.

It may seem that since the last post, the PhantasySteez has been put on the back burner. Personally, I've been trying to adjust to the new situations of living in Birmingham, Alabama. For the most part, my new job wears me out as I have to be there sometimes as early as 2:00 a.m. and even though I'm usually done by noon, I'm also usually extremely exhausted. While I rest, I often think about PhantasySteez and how it can grow. Right now, there really aren't any excuses as to why the Steez died because unlike when I was in California with no computer, I now have a laptop, which I'm using now, and a desktop which I haven't even turned on and I have sitting on the floor. I should be cranking out at least three posts a week... AT LEAST!!



I must resurrect PhantasySteez but now the question is how do I take on such a daunting task. Well, daunting is a major overstatement. The most obvious way is to write more. Next, I need to spruce up the page, put a little lipstick on her. No reason why that can't be done because like I said, I actually have a laptop now instead of just my Galaxy Note 3. Another tactic and very important is to increase my presence on social networking such as Facebook Twitter and of course Google+. Not to mention participating in forums and blogging communities. I also want to get into freelance writing. Mainly though, I need to keep writing.

Had to throw that in there

I got this fantasy baseball team called PhantasyKingz where my boy Victor is the co-manager and quite frankly I can generate a post everytime we talk. About 50 percent of our conversation is about the team, another 35 percent goes to other sports, and the other 15 percent is about actual stuff. You know, how are you doing? how's the fam? etcetera etcetera. Right now we're in 7th place in a 12-man league. I think our team is well rounded, but in the beginning of the season we we're only winning about half of the stat categories. We had two problems. First, our high draft picks, Hanley Ramirez, Yasiel Puig, Robinson Cano, got off to slow starts. Second, even though we're both fans of the games, neither one of us actually watch that much baseball. Lately though after making a few moves with our lineup, things have gotten better and I think we're on the right track. Our Achilles heel right now is stolen bases and I truly believe that if we can fix that I think we'll be alright.



Of course, I don't claim to be a fantasy expert so I'm always open to non-offensive suggestions. You can always comment on this blog. I can also be reached on Google+, my twitter is @donofalldons. Victor's twitter is @DonBryzii. My instagram is donspook. Holla at me, I got all those apps directly on my Note 3.

@donofalldons