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.