My best friend doesn't have internet access at home or work (or rather his access is limited and intermittent) and he's bad with statistics and the like. I on the other hand spend pretty much 24/7 online (I've got an iPhone after all) and I'm very good with numbers.
So, he wanted to try and play fantasy football last year, but couldnt figure out the details in time to get into a draft. This year he got an invite a couple weeks early, and roped me in to managing the team with him.
Now, no man has a greater love for football than me, but I'm not so sure about the whole fantasy thing... I mean it seems kinda interesting and all, but also kinda wanktastic.
Anyway, our fantasy league is through Yahoo, which has you pre-rank all your players, priorities and positions, and does an autodraft. We have 8 teams in our league, so I made 8 primary and a couple of secondary choices for each position and then put them in our pre-draft player list.
Then I decided where I wanted to put each player in our priorities; which is kinda hard actually, given you have no idea what the other teams are going to do... You could put all your top picks for a particular position up front, but you'd end up week in other positions if you do etc...
Here was our pre-draft list in preference order by position (not in draft preference order which was messy, and I no longer have my notes on it):
Offense
QB - Tom Brady
QB - Peyton Manning
QB - Tony Romo
QB - Eli Manning
QB - Carson Palmer
QB - Jake Delhomme
QB - Ben Roethlisberger
QB - Donovan McNabb
TE - Vernon Davis
TE - Antonio Gates
TE - Tony Gonzales
TE - Dallas Clark
TE - Heath Miller
TE - Jeremy Shockey
TE - Greg Olson
TE - Ben Watson
WR - Randy Moss
WR - Santonio Homes
WR - Calvin Johnson
WR - Reggie Wayne
WR - Sidney Rice
WR - Ted Ginn Jr.
WR - Kevin Walter
WR - Vincent Jackson
RB - Ladanian Tomlinson
RB - Adrian Peterson
RB - Brian Westbrook
RB - Clinton Portis
RB - Joseph Addai
RB - Marchand Lynch
RB - Frank Gore
RB - Marian Barber
PK - Stepehen Gostowski
PK - Adam Viniateri
PK - Josh Brown
PK - Nate Kaeding
PK - Nick Folk
PK - Phil Dawson
PK - Shayne Graham
PK - David Akers
Defense
Defense - Patriots
Defense - Steelers
Defense - Vikings
Defense - Chargers
Defense - Giants
Defense - Bears
Defense - Jets
Defense - Cowboys
Well, our draft was yesterday, and we got first pick (randomly selected):
Starting:
QB: Eli Manning
WR: Vincent Jackson
WR: Santonio Holmes
RB: LaDainian Tomlinson
RB: John Paul Foschi
TE: Vernon Davis
W/R: Hines Ward
K: Steven Gostowski
Defense: Indianapolis Colts
Bench:
QB: Jake Delhomme
WR: Nate Burleson
WR: Marvin Harrison
TE: Ben Watson
K: David Akers
Defense: Jacksonville Jaguars
Waivers:
RB: John Paul Foschi
WR: Marvin Harrison
Adds:
RB: Ricky Williams
RB: Rashard Mendenhall
Overall though I'm happy with the draft, with a couple of exceptions (that I'm trying to fix with waivers and adds).
We got our top pic in Ladainian Tomlinson, which I'm very happy about, and our top pick for kicker in Gostowski. I'm also pleased we got Holmes, Jackson, and Davis
Unfortunately, it seems that most of the other teams in our league put our top few choices for RB and QB in their lists, at higher priorities than ours, so we ended up with a two middle of the road QBs, a secondary runningback I've never even heard of (he wasn't on our list at all), and we ended up heavy on wide recievers.
Also we didn't get any of our choices of defense, which is weird because two of our top 8 picks went undrafted; but I'm not really unhappy with what we've got either.
It seems that the autodraft software is a bit buggy. Somehow we ended up with a couple players I put on the exclusion list as definitely NOT wanting. Also some of our picks weren't chosen by any other team in the league, but we were given players lower in our priority list, and the players we prioritized higher went undrafted... and for some reason we cannot now pick those players to replace the ones we got.
Anyway, I'm trying to compensate for that by adding and dropping as best I can before this weekend (the first trade/add/drop deadline is Friday).
Overall though, I think we're looking very competitive. I just need to shore up that secondary running back (I REALLY wanted Addai, Westbrook, Lynch, Gore, or Barber... and who the hell is Foschi?)... and we've got a nice deep bench, with good trade prospects.
