Fantasy files: Assessing the roster

One of the easiest steps to miss once you've completed your draft/auction is to assess. Who is this team of fools that I just drafted? What are my positions of strength? Weakness? If waivers are available, who will I pick up first?

You start with categorizing your players. I'll go with my recent redraft as an example. You have your 16-week starters. You have your rotational guys who will start based on the situation. You have your bye week fill ins. And then there are the lottery tickets.

At QB I have Eli Manning, Brett Favre, and Matthew Stafford. Manning and Favre are situational starters. Had I taken Aaron Rodgers in the first, he would be a 16-game starter. I'm leaning toward Manning as a week one starter since Favre will be rusty and possibly without Percy Harvin and Sidney Rice. Stafford is my lottery ticket and could be useful for trade purposes.

Frank Gore is my 16-week starter at RB. I know, Brian Westbrook's signing means that Gore may catch 20 or so fewer passes. He's still getting 300+ carries and 10+ touchdowns. The NFC West schedule, featuring the anti-murderer's row of St. Louis, Arizona, Seattle and the NFC West is as favorable as it gets. Knowshon Moreno, barring injury, could be a 16-week guy. For now I have to consider him rotational. Laurence Maroney has the whiff of a lottery ticket pick who could be a bell cow guy but most likely won't be trustworthy for anything other than a nail-biting weekly option. Fred Jackson's value couldn't be lower. He'll get carries but I'm not loving the idea of starting him. The problem is I don't see a clear-cut waiver guy to replace either of my two back-end guys.

I'm calling Miles Austin and Brandon Marshall 16-week guys. I had Marshall last year for the entire season and picked Austin up after half my league passed on him after his monster week in Kansas City since he had a bye right after that. It's obvious that my league has the latest when it comes to draft day, but in-season movement is when I can swoop in and make some moves. Hakeem Nicks is an every week starter for me at flex until he proves otherwise. I expect some ups and downs. Wait, Victor Cruz hasn't taken his starting job yet? Devin Hester has lottery ticket potential. I prefer Johnny Knox just because he has the dreaded upside, which as usual means that he hasn't really done anything yet. We are familiar with the inconsistent Hester playbook. I would replace Hester after week one for a guy who emerges. I doubt that I'll do so before the season starts since preseason is nothing but a big tease.
Vernon Davis's knee strain is a blessing in disguise. Do we need any more preseason games to know that Alex Smith's heart belongs to Davis? I'll start him for 16 weeks. Jared Cook is a lottery ticket and I see better options on the waiver wire. If I make a homer pick, at least it's in the 16th round.

Team defense has to be a weekly proposition. The Dolphins had more lottery ticket potential when Ted Ginn was there. The Chargers have a great schedule and a good returner in Sproles. I will be sorely tempted to take the defensive flavor of the week in waivers.

David Buehler is a kicker. I've always hated the position since I benched Rob Bironas the week that he kicked eight field goals. I need to pick up a second (damn roster rules) and would rather have a long snapper on my roster.

The obvious next step is to assess your opponents in the same way. Knowing who your leaguemates may take in waivers is just as important as knowing their rosters in mid-draft. In a league with shallow rosters, playing waivers is your winning ticket.

Fantasy files: Draft diary part two

It's time for part two of my draft day diary. I believe I misspelled some names in my previous post. You try posting when you're hung over and have slept poorly for three days. Actually, don't. You'll make me look bad.

I mentioned briefly yesterday that a key to a fantasy league is the personalities in that league. In my league, we have a lot of characters. It was one thing for us to gather in a friend's basement, make some picks, do some shots, and take some shots at each other. We were going to be at a casino for three days together. Instead of our normal draft eve poker match we were going to be in day one of a drinking and eating binge the likes of which I haven't seen since the last time I was in New Orleans.

There were 13 of us heading for Tunica, Mississippi. The reason we traveled there was that we could get all the owners to show up. There's nothing worse than having that one owner on the phone or in a chat room asking "who was taken?" all day. We had ten people coming in from Atlanta and three out of towners. One guy flew from Miami. Another drove from Chicago, a mind-numbing 14 hour drive.

A few of my friends travel a lot for business, so when we meet in the Atlanta airport at 8:30 in the morning, the first thing he did was hand us drink tickets. Yes, I had my opening beverage at about 10 a.m. with the obligatory "way to go" look from the stewardess.

We arrived at the airport and immediately went to a bar. The bartender was used to our sort, as she asked if we wanted the "big" beer (no duh) and if we wanted a shot (not quite yet). The Memphis leg of the trip ended with a BBQ stop (Neeley's, not as good as I'd hoped) and a drive-by of Graceland.

Tunica, which we found out later is actually a town called Robinsonville, is in the middle of Mississippi. I mean it's in the middle of nowhere. We made one liquor store owner's day when we nearly sold him out of the hard stuff. We had a conference room locked down for the following day but we wanted our own "penalty shot" materials. We got in, met with the group, damaged our stomachs with a trip to the Paula Dean buffet and drew cards for our draft slots. I got pick number eight and thought that I would struggle with my first pick. We managed to recreate our friendly card game by getting a Texas Hold 'Em game rolling. Our buy in was $40. Usually we're playing for $10 and it's dicey if we have to rebuy. I'd say about half of our group bought more chips. We played until about one in the morning and retired.

The draft room the following day was my worry. Our usual start time is nine in the morning. You haven't lived until you've taken a shot of vodka at 9:15 on a Saturday morning. We decided to start at eleven. Since I had organized our rooms, I got us the use of a conference room. I ordered pizza, beer, soda, and on the request of one owner who feared being called a "girl", a veggie tray. The veggie tray was well received.

Although it was uncertain if we'd get rolling on time, the service was good. The pizzas arrived a bit early but they sent us replacements. Our group lined up a set of liquor bottles that averaged about half a gallon per person. I plugged in my laptop and got the Draft Dominator rolling. I was going to offer its usage to the league but everyone was full of cheat sheets and magazines. The commish put the draft board up, congratulated our champion and we began.

I had an extra duty besides room organizer. When baseball players come up to bat, the PA system plays a few seconds of their song. I wanted to recreate this so I asked all league owners to pick a song and I got my iPod player rolling. The only difficulty with this was that I was trying to keep track of picks and some owners would make their pick before I could change the song. There was a little too much of a sense of urgency.

I won't lie. We started slowly. No one would break the pizza or beer seal and the guys in "Tequila Alley" were tentative. After we breezed through four rounds in an hour the room loosened up. I got my first shot, lemon vodka, which tasted too good. I played my game of QB chicken and I'll say it, I think I won. I know it's a keeper league and I know I didn't get an elite guy. I'll find a keeper out of the three I drafted. When I picked in the eighth round and prepared to announce very loudly that I was taking BRETT LORENZO FAVRE, a hotel representative came in the room and asked to talk to me.

There were two issues. Our group had ordered cookies and brownies. I had to sign for them. Yeah, I haven't seen the bill yet. It's going to be epic. Also, I was told that we were not allowed to have outside liquor. I tried to soberly assess the situation (no irony there), and promised that we'd take care of it. My executive decision? I told everyone to put their bottles under the table.

The drinking continued. I shared a bottle of Jaegermeister with a friend. I don't really like hard liquor and the taste of licorice isn't my bag, yet I did four shots of the stuff with some beer as a chaser. I continued making what I thought were good picks. I tried to sneak Arian Foster and did about as well as Eli Manning avoiding a sack.

We completed the draft. The natural follow up was a dip in the pool. Pina coladas were ordered. I'm now up to at least four types of alcohol in one day. I would have wine with dinner, a giant steak that was exactly what I needed.

I'd like to say that we were wild and crazy. Really, people lost some money, and we're talking waiting until midnight to be able to withdraw more money from the ATM, and we had no regard to our bodies with our meals. Face it. We were in Tunica. What kind of shenanigans were we really going to get into?

It was fun and this week will be a big-time detox. I might be able to look at a bottle of liquor without getting queasy by September.

Fantasy files: Draft diary part one

I have two draft diaries. One involves the actual draft, like who was taken and the other has to do with the draft-day experience. 75% of your fantasy football fun should be vested in the people in the league. If you have good people who are challenging competitors, good friends and willing to drink hard liquor with you, how your team is matters but not as much.

Let's talk the boring, who I took part. When I completed my last few Draft Dominator simulations, quarterbacks were very popular. There were seven taken in the first two rounds almost every time with a bit of a drop off after that. I assumed that our league would be different, and for the first two times we've done a complete redraft, it has been different. Maybe four guys would go in the first round and there would be a wait while the running backs and wide receivers flew off the board.

We had changed the rules to make the league PPR and add a WR/TE flex spot. This should have bumped up the value of wide receivers. It was not so when the draft started.

We drew lots on Friday night. I wanted a otop four pick for obvious reasons. I got pick eight. No one in the top half of the draft wanted to trade. I wasn't sure who I would take at that spot. I assumed ht thae top five running backs would be off the board and I would have to decide between Andre Johnson, Steven Jackson, Michael Turner and grabbing the first quarterback. As things happen in real life, that was not my decison.

The Big Four went in the first four picks. That's when the predictability of the league ended. Pick five was Michael Turner, a guy I thought would certainly be there at my pick. Pick six was Andre Johnson. I had Andre Johnson for the past four seasons. He's in my team's Hall of Fame. I'll miss him. Pick seven was Drew Brees. I didn't hesitate. I took Frank Gore.

Should I have hesitated? Sigmund Bloom, one of the experts among the footballguys.com staff, suggested the quarterback by committee route this year. Ten QBs threw for 4,000 yards last year and it's likely to happen again this year. It's a pass-happy league.

Four teams picked before my second round pick. All four took quarterbacks. Aaron Rodgers went at the nine slot. Tom Brady went 12th. Peyton Manning and Tony Romo went before me. Draft Dominator told me to take Matt Schaub. I wasn't ready to go QB. I got Miles Austin.

The league wasn't done with quarterbacks. Schaub went after my pick. Rivers went two picks after me. By the third pick of the third round, the tenth QB went off the board. It was Joe Flacco. I decided then to play a game of quarterback chicken. I would wait for quarterback, and my all too astute leaguemates were very aware of this. Cutler went, then Carson Palmer in the fourth. I stayed put. I got Brandon Marshall in the third, Knowshon Moreno in the fourth, Hakeem Nicks in the fifth and Vernon Davis in the sixth. Heading to my seventh-round pick someone took Donovan McNabb as his backup quarterback (ironically to the Kevin Kolb owner). I had to fire.

I got Eli Manning as the 13th QB off the board. I paired him up with a 2010 solution in Brett Favre. After taking Laurence Maroney and Fred Jackson (injury d'oh) in the next two rounds, I was astounded to see Matthew Stafford still on the board in the 11th round. I got him. Hester went in the 12th and the rest of the draft was a mess of defenses, kickers, and many many shots. In the final round I took Arian Foster as a what the heck fifth RB but the pick was ripped off the board by the league because we have positional limits. Obviously we drank but we didn't drink enough.

The next draft diary entry will be about the draft experience. This will be more entertaining for the non fantasy football follower.

Quick pick summary:
1.08: Frank Gore
2.05: Miles "to go before I sleep" Austin
3.08: Brandon Marshall
4.05: Knowshon Moreno
5.08: Hakeem Nicks
6.05: Vernon Davis
7.08: Eli Manning
8.05: Brett Lorenzo Favre
9.08: Laurence Maroney
10.05: Fred Jackson
11.08: Matthew Stafford
12.05: Devin Hester
13.08: Miami D
14.05: San Diego D
15.08: David Buehler
16.05: Jared Cook
17.08: Arian Foster (pick ripped off due to roster limits)