Sunday, September 03, 2006

Welcome to my fantasy

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play. Yes, I am now a coach of a NFL team. Okay, not a real team, but a fantasy football league team.

Last year Doug coached his first fantasy football team and really got into it. That's fine. I'm not much into football other than my blood bleeds Arkansas Razorback red. Even living in Austin, to me the proper way to do the hook'em horns sign is with the horns pointing downward. Doug, on the other hand, has always been a huge NFL fan and I try to go along, if, that is, going along means that I leave him in peace to watch football on Sundays.

Doug had such a great time with fantasy football last year, saying it really helped him to get more enjoyment from all the games, that he's playing again this year. Because they had an odd number of teams, Doug decided to put my name in the hat and draft a team for me. I was there, and I put the names of my players on the board, but let's face it, I don't know Ronnie Brown from Josh White. I know a few of the Chiefs players because Doug is a fan, I know a few of the older Dallas players from when I lived in that city and they were the only thing talked about (but most of those guys are retired), and I know the big names that everyone knows, like Peyton Manning. Let's just say I saw Doug Flutie's name on the draft list and thought, "didn't that guy retire 10 years ago?" I really don't keep up with this stuff.

Except I did know Matt Jones, a receiver for Jacksonville. Of course, he is a former Razorback quarterback who turned receiver in the pros. Luckily, I drafted him. Of course, no one else even cared about him except Doug. Even if he wasn't predicted to have a break-out year, I would have drafted him simply because he was a Razorback. Unfortunately Doug didn't let me draft my other favorite former Hog, Cedric Cobb, because Cobb may not even be picked up this year and even if he did, he wouldn't play much.

My roster is below. Make any comments you want, but keep in mind, I don't know who is who. I also picked last, so often I didn't get much of a choice. However, according to Doug, I had a pretty good draft and should be in contention to make the league playoffs. He's really hoping we come in #1 & #2 this year.

Running backs
  • Ronnie Brown, Miami
  • Julius Jones, Dallas
  • Chester Taylor, Minnesota
  • Lendale White, Tennessee

Wide receivers

  • Hines Ward, Pittsburgh
  • Joe Horn, New Orleans
  • Andre Johnson, Houston
  • Matt Jones, Jacksonville

Quarterbacks

  • Carson Palmer, Cincinnati
  • Jake Plummer, Denver

Tight ends

  • Randy McMichael, Miami
  • Chris Cooley, Washington

Kicker

  • Josh White, Seattle

Defense

  • Indianapolis

4 comments:

dquack said...

Yeah, Plummer was a late-round pick. I needed a back-up QB and he seemed to be the best available. I did get lucky being able to get Palmer. They did a snake draft, so while I was the last pick in Round 1, I was the first in Round 2. Someone had already picked Peyton in Round 1, so it was decided that I get Palmer at the beginning of Round 2. If I had waited until the end of Round 3 for a QB, there wouldn't have been anyone good left.

Anonymous said...

Mark and I had our annual FF draft last night. I have done this for 6 or 7 years. The first year I picked 1st, and won our league superbowl. It was a keeper league and I picked Edgerrin James first. This year we have 13 teams, and decided to start over on drafting. I picked 4 (ask Doug how bad that was. I'd have preferred 13!). I wanted Palmer and Chad Johnson(one-two punch with a single team), but ended up with Bulger and Holt. I got two Barbers as RB's, as well as Lindell White, Joseph Addai and V. Morency (rookie/2nd year). My other WR are I. Bruce, D. Bennett, R. Moss, T. Gonzales (mostly because the league knows i always draft him in the 7th round). Roethlisberger is backup QB (probably primary after he returns). Indi defense, and The cockiest kicker in the league (Vanderjagt - now at Dallas). We play head-to-head, and I'm playing Mark this first week. After he beats my butt, he'll help me pick up or trade for some better depth at RB. Enjoy it! Trash talking is lots of fun!

Anonymous said...

The above was done by Chris :) I thought it would ask me to put in a screen name :)

dquack said...

For as big of a Chiefs fan as Doug is, he really didn't want to draft any of them. Their defense is one of the worst in the league and the offense isn't looking too good this year. For as much as he likes Gonzales (has his authentic jersey), Doug feels that Tony, and much of the offense, has past his prime. Maybe this is why Doug enjoys FF so much -- he can cheer for other teams and not be tied to just the Chiefs. Oh, well. It happens to every team. I happened to the Cowboys when Troy, Emmett and Michael peaked. It will be a year or two with the current roster and then the Chiefs will have to rebuild.

There didn't seem to be much trash talking with the league last year. So far only one person has trashed talked and it was a 12 year old boy. One of the guys from the bar (think Pflugerville's answer to Cheers and Doug is one of the regulars) wants to get in good with the kid's mom so he invited the boy to play. He already annoys me and I want to remind him that he is a little boy and we are the grown ups. Then I look around at the other members of the league (i.e. people who hang at the bar way more than Doug does) and realize this boy is just as grown up as most of the others. :-)