Fantasy Football Failure: Success!

Okay, so I'm a little behind. The championship game was Week 16 and here we are, the Monday after Week 17. Whatever. Week 17 didn't count in my league, so I don't care if this recap is a bit late. Besides, I won the championship game, so this recap can go up whenever I damn well please!

So, yeah, I won my fantasy football championship over Team Dreher, and won comfortably, 95-63. But it didn't start out comfortable. First, David Garrard put up 21 points in the Thursday night game and Tashard Choice put up 17 in the Saturday night game, and both guys were taking up spots on the bench. Leaving 38 points on the bench usually isn't a sign of good things to come, but it turns out I didn't need it (though my bench put up 68 points, which also would have won the championship). Tyler Thigpen made me feel good about leaving Garrard's 21 points on the bench by putting up 25 himself (and that could've been more if he hadn't thrown 3 picks). I also got big games from Chris Johnson, Vincent Jackson, and Reggie Wayne; thankfully these guys were playing on teams that still had something to play for in Week 16. I was also helped on the other side by Anquan Boldin being inactive (no reason to push him when the Cardinals had nothing to play for) and the Bucs defense scoring a whopping -6 points (man, did they implode down the stretch). In all, its nice when your opponent takes on negative points.

Okay, to fill out this post, I've decided to take a look back at my inital post-draft analysis thoughts from August:

-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).

Still agree with this assessment. Barber was a stud until he got hurt late in the year. Wayne was solid overall, but he had a long stretch in the middle of the season where he was terrible (and yet, I still managed to win those weeks).

-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.

Ouch. But in my defense, you can never anticipate a guy suffering a serious injury at the beginning of the year (hello, Tom Brady). And even though he had a slow start to the season, I was right on Garrard- he had a solid year. But even with that, there was no way I could have predicted how my starting QB's would play out. Once it was clear Palmer wasn't an option, I managed with J.T. O'Sullivan for a few weeks, then Garrard once he started playing well, before finally settling on Tyler Thigpen to finish out the year and lead me through the playoffs. Regardless of who's coaching in Kansas City next year, I think Thigpen is the guy for them, and i think that's a good thing for the Chiefs.

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

And he did, for half a season until he got hurt.

-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.

One for two here. Favre started out great, but was soon showing his age and all Pennington did was lead the formerly 1-15 Dolphins to the AFC East title and the playoffs. Oops. Coles was a total bust this year- 1 great game (when I had him on the bench), 3 good games (exluding Week 17, which doesn't count for anything), and the rest of the time he was terrible. As for Bowe, they did find someone to get him the ball (see: Thigpen, Tyler).

-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.

McAllister gave me nothing and Jones eventually got hurt, so this was a lost pick either way.

-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.

Yeah, not so much. I had a rough time with TE this year, juggling guys like Crumpler, Bo Scaife, John Carlson, Kevin Boss, and Zach Miller. Odd that the guy who plays for the Raiders (Miller) would end up being the most consistent (no touchdowns, but 50-70 yards a week; if he could find the end zone just once in a while he'd be a real good option at TE).

-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.

Best pick of my draft. Tenth round, #131 overall, and he's the #10 fantasy running back, even with LenDale White vulturing some of his touchdowns. I'll take it.

-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.

Uh, too much time devoted to thinking about defenses. The Pats were decent for the beginning of the year, but I also used the Falcons and the Jets to fill my D/ST slot. DeSean Jackson would've been a good pick, but I have the feeling that he would've spent a lot of time on my bench.

-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.

All meaningless picks except for Vincent Jackson in Round 11. I dumped the other guys pretty quickly, but for whatever reason, I held only Jackson. Great choice. He didn't start coming alive until about Week 6, and as I was looking for someone to fill my RB/WR flex slot, he became Philip Rivers's favorite deep threat and he started putting up solid fantasy numbers.

-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.

Stover was an okay pick, but in the end, I ended up using a tandem of Jason Elam (finished the year tied for #3 fantasy kicker) and Matt Prater (#14 kicker). And Bironas would've been a good pick- he finished the year at #2 (behind Stephen Gostkowski).

So in the end, I apparently made just enough right moves to sneak into the playoffs and eventually make a run to the championship. And even though I won, I'm still certain the curse of this blog still exists. I mean, the opposite of what I write here usually comes true, so by expecting failure, I somehow managed a reverse jinx on my own fantasy team. Crazy, I know, but you can't argue the facts. Its been a great year, but now I'm sad that football is going to be ending soon. Guess its time to start getting stoked on college basketball!