Anatomy of my Fantasy Football Team

I like football.  No, I LOVE football.  Fall = football and this first fall-feeling weekend happened to coincide with the first week of NFL.  I’m an Ohio State fan and a Steelers fan, but I have to admit to liking NFL more than college.  I’ve gotten a lot of crap in my life for being a Steelers fan, considering I grew up in Ohio, but what people often don’t realize is that grew up 45 minutes from Pittsburgh, compared to 1.5 hours from Cleveland.  They didn’t run cable on our road and it took until I was a sophomore in high school until the satellite company could get a signal and we FINALLY had MTV (which is now a worthless network, but in the mid/late 90’s it was still decent).  We lived in the sticks – and by sticks, I mean surrounded by really, really tall trees (and cornfields).

The point of that is that our network tv feed, which meant our only tv feed until dish, came out of Pittsburgh.  So the games that were usually on were Steelers for football and Pirates for baseball.  Not all of my sisters are Steelers fans, but that’s probably because my parents didn’t give a crap who was playing or who we were rooting for.  My dad watches games, but doesn’t really have an opinion, and my mom only knows anything about football since my nephews started playing.  She text me last week to say that Brady did well at quarterback, which was news to me since he’s a running back (technically fullback).

I’ve been playing fantasy football since 2004 and have done quite well – I think I made the playoffs almost every year and made it to the semis and finals a few times – including winning one year.  Being the only girl in my league(s), there have always been some guys that weren’t very happy that I was in the league.  They assumed I knew nothing about football and picked my team based on who I thought was “hot”.  They’d laugh at my draft picks then would get REALLY pissed when they realized the picks were actually good when I’d beat them. I even played against and usually beat 2 former Ohio State/NFL players – though they were much more gracious at getting beat by a girl than some of the other guys.

I’m only in one league this year because the commissioner of my original league didn’t do a league this year for some reason (which reminds me, he probably never paid me or the 3rd/4th place players).  The only league I’m in is with Lo and a few of his friends (and some guys I don’t know).  I never do quite as well in this league, but had a couple of 3rd place finishes.  I had third pick and the guy who picked before me every other round (snake draft) picked the player I was getting ready to choose about 5 times, which was frustrating!  I have a few rules that I usually follow – I don’t pick Browns players (none have been worth it since I’ve been playing), I won’t pick Eli Manning (I’m still irritated that he was such a spoiled brat that he had his dad fix things when the Chargers wanted to draft him), and I won’t pick Vick because he is a worthless piece of shit who does not deserve to be celebrated in any way.  I know he did his time and puts on a good show at being sorry for what he did, but you can’t fix the evil inside of him that he would have to have in order to do the things he did.

So here’s my draft:

• RB Arian Foster, Hou RB – I was hoping for Aaron Rogers, but knew it was unlikely. He went first, Brady went second, so Arian Foster was a no-brainer
• TE Jimmy Graham, NO TE – I don’t think I’ve ever picked a TE any earlier than the 4th or 5th round, but I think he’s going to have a great year because Brees uses TE a lot
• WR Wes Welker, NE WR – Having a Pats WR is usually a good move, but risky because Brady spreads the ball around so much.  But Welker is consistent and usually gets a ton of catches.  He didn’t this first week, but that’ll happen
• RB Ahmad Bradshaw, NYG RB – he’s a solid RB and with Jacobs gone, should get most of the carries
• QB Philip Rivers, SD QB – I really wanted one of the top 6 QB’s and he was the one of the only ones left before things started to get down to the second tier QB’s (and the guy picking before me already took Cam Newton, who I hoped to get).
• WR Antonio Brown, Pit WR – I really, really, really wanted him. I bypassed taking Wallace earlier because I wanted Brown so much (and knew I could wait longer to get him).  As soon as I got him I breathed a sigh of relief and felt better about my draft.  I literally told myself – everything will be okay now.
• D/ST Texans D/ST D/ST – I ended up picking a D earlier than I need to, but I wanted a top one and was afraid that if I waited and someone picked one soon after my turn, the good ones would be gone by the time it got back to me.
• RB/WR Kevin Smith, Det RB – Because of injuries/suspensions, he was going to be the starting back so I grabbed him for my flex spot – he came through for week one with 22 points
• Bench Torrey Smith, Bal WR – As much as I don’t like to root for any Ravens players, he should be the most targeted WR for the team and was happy to get him in the 9th round
• Bench C.J. Spiller, Buf RB – Spiller had a great 2nd half of the season after Fred Jackson got hurt, so I expected him to get a number of touches this year.  Jackson got hurt on Sunday and Spiller racked up 24 points (on my bench)
• Bench Lance Moore, NO WR – Brees is a great QB, so I picked him up to help out with bye weeks – he had a huge week one with 19.8 points (on my bench)
• Bench Alex Smith, SF QB – I needed a bye week QB (or in case of an injury) and he’s not amazing, but he’s solid
• K Matt Prater, Den K – Thin air = long kicks.  He made some HUGE game- winning kicks last year tat made people believe that Tebow was the next big thing.  While I do think Tebow plays very well under pressure and God does love him, he could almost always count on Prater for some 55+ yarders (whereas any other kicker at any other stadium couldn’t be counted on for kicks that long).
• Bench Owen Daniels, Hou – I needed a back up TE and he was the best of what was left
• Bench Kendall Wright, Ten WR – He’s a rookie who was going to get to start with Britt suspended.  I thought I take a chance on him since I didn’t “need” any particular position.

I’ll leave you with this adorable picture of Lo and our friends’ baby (both are Browns fans).  This was after the Browns lost at the last minute today.

Actually, just as I was getting ready to schedule this, Ben threw a pick 6 against the Broncos with 2 minutes left, so I’m kinda looking like this now too… 🙁