Fantasy Draft Recap

I’ve been watching this season of HBO’s Hard Knocks featuring the Dallas Cowboys and it’s taught me two things. First, I’m not sure I’d be able to lift a single thing in an NFL weight room. And, Jerry Jones is not as terrible of an owner as you might think. In one of the episodes he got up in front of the team and said something along the lines of, I’m super rich and could be anywhere in the world right now. But I’m here, with you and want to win. Jones is often criticized for this hands-on approach to ownership, but when I got thinking about the things I would do if I owned a professional football team, Jones' antics seem like a drop in the bucket. That said, I don’t own a professional football team, but I do own a fantasy football team and our draft was last night. Here is a brief recap.

My co-owner, Mr. Pants, and I had the 10th and 11th picks (bottom of Round 1, top of Round 2). What to do? We knew from the outset we wanted Randy Moss, but the rumor mill indicated he wouldn’t be there. From the information we gathered, the first round would look something like this:

1. Tomlinson
2. Peterson
3. Brady
4. Westbrook
5. Jackson (Steven)
6. Addai
7. Moss
8. Gore
9. Barber
10. Romo

This is what actually happened:

1. Tomlinson
2. Peterson
3. Westbrook
4. Addai
5. Jackson (Steven)
6. Barber
7. Gore
8. Brady
9. Romo
10. Moss

So we had all of the pieces, just not in the right order. Which turned out to be a good thing—we think. The guy we wanted was there and we had first crack at Round 2. Our first instinct was to select a running back to add some balance, but the players available (including Marshawn Lynch, Clinton Portis and Larry Johnson) weren’t screaming “Take me!” We ended up selecting Terrell Owens and hoping a Jacobs/Maroney type back would be available next time around. This Moss/Owens thing looks great on paper, but who knows what these two are capable of. Bill Simmons said in a recent podcast that drafting those two on the same team may upset the fantasy gods. I think Val Kilmer said it best in the movie Heat, “Is the bank worth the risk?” Let’s hope so.

After 18 picks and a rush on receivers, Jacobs was still on the board. So were Fast Willie Parker and Ryan Grant. WHAT!?! How did two top 15 backs in the draft fall right into our laps? I attribute it to a lackluster effort in Round 3 by some of my fellow owners. Just a few of the picks I didn’t like: Carson Palmer, Chad Ocho Cinco (can you tell I’m low on the Bengals this year?), D. McNabb (love the man, but not the team), Steve Smith (suspended), Michael Turner (overrated). Truth be told, neither one of us was huge fan of Grant, considering he missed almost the entire preseason and is a Sophomore Slumper candidate, but at Round 4 who can argue with that pick? As for Jacobs, he was still available in Round 5, so we took him then over Santonio Holmes. Hope we don’t end up regretting that decision considering our selection of Roethisberger in Round 6.

In Rounds 7 and 8 we officially hit the “It’s time to fill needs and reach for players we want” portion of the draft. The foundation was set and we needed to build around it with a strong supporting cast. Unfortunately we missed the blitz on TEs and were left with Tony Gonzalez—our need pick. A pick I’m still unhappy with a day later and probably will be for the entire 2008 season. Our reach pick was Patrick Crayton. It pains me to draft Cowboys, but they could be one of the most prolific offenses in the league this year—or I’ve been drinking too much of the Hard Knocks Kool-Aid. Besides, I can root for them to have a successful regular season and fall apart in the playoffs, right?

Some random notes from last night’s draft
- Pants was not a big fan of Vern selecting Braylon Edwards in the second round at #17. He said Edwards will be this year’s Sophomore Slumper and added, “He plays for the Browns.” Hmm…
- One of the owners, Jason Wetmore of the Wetmore Insurance Agency, has a history of drafting Brett Farve. So much so, he once named one of his teams Brett Chmura. I thought this would be his year the Jets would be the new Packers, but I was wrong. He did drat one Jet—Thomas Jones.
- Vern was the first to call out a player already drafted—a great moment in any draft that always gets a rise from the crowd. In this case it was two players—Marvin Harrison and Dallas Clark. He settled for Donald Driver.
- Ladies and Gentlemen 2008’s Mr. Irrelevant Award goes to Roscoe Parrish.
- This year’s Super Sleeper, DeSean Jackson, who started the draft process outside the Top 200 went in Round 10.
- We paid $14 each for pizza and wings.
- Pants and I drafted two TEs with the same bye week.
- Demperio drafted two QBs with the same bye week.
- On our big board, players with the same last name would have their first name inserted in parenthesis (see Jackson in Top 10 picks). By the end of the night there were some good ones including: Hightower (Officer) and Boss (The).

This was fun rehasing the events of our 13th annual fantasy draft. I’m thinking fantasy talk will be a recurring them here on the blog, so stay tuned.