Fantasy Football Failure: Post-Draft Analysis

First off, I think I like Yahoo!'s draft setup better than ESPN.com's. We had some weird freeze ups where people couldn't draft players and the draft had to be paused and edited, and the whole thing just seemed like a hassle. Anyway, on to the draft results. I had the 10th pick (in a 14 team league); here's how I drafted:

Round 1 (#10 overall): Marion Barber, RB
Round 2 (#19): Reggie Wayne, WR
Round 3 (#38): Carson Palmer, QB
Round 4 (#47): Earnest Graham, RB
Round 5 (#66): Laveranues Coles, WR
Round 6 (#75): Dwayne Bowe, WR
Round 7 (#94): Deuce McAllister, RB
Round 8 (#103): David Garrard, QB
Round 9 (#122): Alge Crumpler, TE
Round 10 (#131): Chris Johnson, RB
Round 11 (#150): Vincent Jackson, WR
Round 12 (#159): Patriots, DEF
Round 13 (#178): Arnaz Battle, WR
Round 14 (#187): Michael Bush, RB
Round 15 (#206): Limas Sweed, WR
Round 16 (#215): Lawrence Tynes, K

Overall draft thoughts:

-I like having 14 teams. It requires using backups and thrid- and fourth-tier guys to win the league and not just relying on the 3 stud players you picked up because your league's only 10 teams deep. Sometimes this means getting lucky with a pick; hey, that happens and its part of the game.

-As usual, not everyone could make it to the live draft (though our man in Belgium made it for the first half, some 6 hours ahead of EDT; that's dedication). And as usual, the autodraft makes things interesting, especially when some people pre-rank their players (like Honester Ciphers, the Asylum's Pacific Northwest Correspondent) and some don't. For example, picks #1 and #2 weren't at the live draft and didn't pre-rank their players (at least, it didn't appear they did); that meant every time the draft snaked around to the top, there were 4 automatic picks that were based on the best available players left, according to ESPN's rankings. So if there was a guy you wanted to take in the next round but he was near the top of the "best available" list, you had to take him early because by the time it snaked back to you, the autodraft would have taken him. Makes for interesting (and sometimes questionable) draft strategy.

Now to look at my draft:

-Barber and Wayne in Rounds 1 and 2. Top of the draft, take the best available. I think these are pretty solid picks. Looking at the guys taken in Rounds 1 and 2, I don't think I could have done much better given where I was picking (at #10 and #19).

-Palmer and Garrard in Rounds 3 and 8. Homer pick? A little, but it makes it easier on Sundays since I'm going to rooting for him and the Bengals anyway. And I think I have a more than capable backup in David Garrard. I like Garrard. I got him last year at about the same time in the draft and he ended up being my starter most of the season. Hopefully Carson has a great year and I don't have to use Garrard. If not, I think I'm still okay at QB.

-Graham in Round 4. Graham had a quietly solid year last year. Hopefully he can do the same this year.

-Coles and Bowe in Rounds 5 and 6. Two things I'm hoping for here. One, I hope that Coles gets over his man-crush of Chad Pennington and realizes that Brett Favre, while old, is still better than Pennington ever was. And two, I hope they find someone in Kansas City who can get the ball to Bowe. If those things happen, I think these guys could have pretty good years.

-McAllister in Round 7. I was targeting Felix Jones here to have the Barber/Jones backfield combo, and he was available at the start of the round, but was taken 6 picks before I could get him. So since I had my backfield duo broken up, I took McAllister to break up someone else's Saints backfield combo.

-Crumpler in Round 9. He's best years were when he had Michael Vick at QB. Here's hoping he can put up comparable numbers now that he's with a comparable QB in Vince Young.

-Johnson in Round 10. I think every fantasy football publication has Chris Johnson listed as a potential "sleeper pick" this year. I don't know about that, but Round 10 seemed like a good place to take a chance.

-Patriots defense in Round 12. Too soon for a defense? Probably. I was actually looking at taking a shot at DeSean Jackson here (matching him with Johnson as "potential rookie sleepers"), but I thought there might be a run on defenses (because my league can be weird like that) and that I could wait on Jackson until the next round. Wrong and wrong. I could have easily gotten the Pats D (or a comparable one) later on and DeSean Jackson was taken six picks later. Oh well.

-Jackson, Battle, Bush, and Sweed in Rounds 11, 13, 14, and 15. Just looking to fill out the roster with skill position guys. I think Limas Sweed will end up being a pretty good receiver in the NFL. I thought that Sweed would have been a good second round pick for the Bengals in this year's draft (hell, DeSean Jackson would've been good, too). Instead, they took Jerome Simpson from Coastal Carolina, had every wideout on the roster get hurt, and then resigned Chris Henry. Well done, Mike Brown, well done.

-Tynes in Round 16. Okay, big mistake here. I didn't know that Tynes was coming off of exploratory knee surgery (I don't do much scouting on kickers). So I'm going to drop him and pick up Matt Stover (ie- the Ravens main offensive weapon) on Friday when the waiver wire opens. Actually, I was looking at Rob Bironas here (was solid for me last year, including the 8 field goal game), but he was taken 2 picks before me. Oh well- its just a kicker.

Overall thoughts on my team right now: I think its a good team, not a great one. I feel pretty good about my starting guys, but I've got some serious doubt about my bench. But we'll see how it turns out. I'll be previewing my Week 1 match up next week, once everyone's done tweaking their rosters.