For the second consecutive season, I was invited to join the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Industry Insiders fantasy football league. Last year, 48 fantasy writers squared off in four, 12-team conferences utilizing World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF) PPR rules, with a starting lineup of 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 Flex, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 DT. (So before you call me a jackass for making a certain pick, please consider the scoring system.)
Last year, my team was one of four from my conference that made the playoffs, but once there, my squad petered out. Still, against this kind of competition, I think it’s a pretty solid accomplishment to finish in the top quarter to top third of all the teams.
I had a late pick last year (grr) and drew a late pick this year (grr), although this is probably one of the better years to pick first in the late first round. Pundits complain about no clear #1 or #2 choice, though I think Maurice Jones-Drew and Adrian Peterson would look great in my backfield. One reason that picking late isn’t that bad this year is due to the (apparent) drop off in talent somewhere in the middle of the fourth round. Teams that pick late will get four of the top 40-45 players, while those that pick early will not. But more on that later.
This is a slow email draft and right now, it’s going really slowly. We started on Tuesday, and two and half days later, we’re not even through the third round. (I thought these fantasy writers spent all day online like I do, but I guess I was wrong.)
So, going forward, I’m going to do a post about each of my picks until it gets tedious (for me), which will probably be around Round 10. We’ll see.
Off we go…
Round 1: 1) Adrian Peterson, 2) Maurice Jones-Drew, 3) Matt Forte, 4) Steven Jackson, 5) Larry Fitzgerald, 6) Andre Johnson, 7) DeAngelo Williams
First off, the team with the third pick offered to trade down, but I would have had to move back in the second and fourth rounds. I considered pulling the trigger, but only if Maurice Jones-Drew fell, and he didn’t. Someone else actually made the trade before the MJD pick. I like Forte, but with all the good news coming out of Chicago about Kevin Jones, I thought that there was a good chance that the Bears would lessen their star back’s workload. We will see.
You might have noticed that Fitzgerald and AJ went quite early in this draft. That’s because the three WR, PPR format enhances the value of the WR position. It was actually my plan to draft Fitz or AJ at #8, but that went out the window when Team 6 drafted Johnson two spots before me. As I waited for Team 7 to pick, I considered DeAngelo, Randy Moss, Chris Johnson and Frank Gore. (I didn’t include Steve Slaton in this group due to Chris Brown’s presence as the Texans’ probable goal-line back.) Moss’s history of flakiness scares me a bit as a first round pick, and Gore doesn’t score enough TDs in the 49ers’ anemic offense, so it came down to Williams and Johnson.
When I compared the two, I felt a little better about Johnson’s chances of repeating a strong rookie season than I did about DeAngelo scoring another 20 TDs, which was a huge departure from the Panthers’ recent history of rushing success. Johnson projects to have a much easier schedule than last year, which bodes well, while Carolina’s schedule is staying about the same. It came down to Johnson’s receptions versus Williams’s touchdowns, and I’ve always been a proponent of drafting a RB that catches a lot of passes, because week to week, you’re pretty much guaranteed 3-4 points from the catches and another 2-4 points from his receiving yardage. Yes, I’m worried about LenDale White stealing a bunch of goal line carries, but in the end, I gave the slight nod to Johnson.
Luckily, the owner ahead of me picked DeAngelo, so I was left with my first choice from that aforementioned group.
Round 1, Pick 8: Chris Johnson, RB
The rest of Round 1 went like this: 9) Calvin Johnson, 10) Randy Moss, 11) Steve Slaton, 12) LaDainian Tomlinson
