Fantasy files; Beware of Trader Zach

My keeper league has made me crazy. I've started referring to myself in the third person, as Trader Zach.

I started with Eli Manning as my QB keeper. That was not sufficient. I had Frank Gore and Darren McFadden at running back. I considered them equal talents with McFadden's inability to stay healthy matching up with Gore's age. McFadden's talent and Gore's track record felt like a wash. I had Hakeem Nicks, Miles Austin, Brandon Marshall and Vincent Jackson at wideout. All four seemed keeper-worthy although Nicks was the stud. I decided to use my two most valuable chips and moved Nicks and McFadden for Peyton Manning. I had plans for Eli.

I started by asking for a third-round draft pick for Eli. It took me a month but the deal was done for a fourth-round pick. After considering the merits of Miles Austin versus Vincent Jackson, I decided to stick with Austin. I offered Vincent Jackson for a fourth and settled for a fifth. The other guy's top WR was Santana Moss.
All the news I've heard since I made my trades focused on Gore's injury from last year and Peyton's neck injury. I wasn't worried about the Gore's injury history and age until the Panthers decided to spend a boatload of money on DeAngelo Williams. Gore decided to hold out. I had to hit the eject button.

I botched a Shonn Greene for Mike Wallace trade, although in the end that might work out in my favor. I made an off-the-cuff counter-offer of Frank Gore for Calvin Johnson. The trade offer was to my dad. He, like any smart fantasy owner, knew the trade was unbalanced. In a phone call he mentioned that he'd take Gore and a second-round pick. I decided I wanted a pick back, and we agreed on his seventh rounder.

Making this deal would take guts. It would leave me vulnerable as my only two running backs on my roster are Shonn Greene and Fred Jackson. Neither are keeper-worthy. I'd have to make one last deal to get that keeper running back.
Scouring the rosters, I saw that one guy had Mendenhall and Forte and three WR2s. I offered him Miles Austin for the running back he didn't want. Forte has more potential in PPR but Mendenhall seems like a lock for 300 carries and maybe six guys can say that in the league. Both are young enough to be keepers at least for another year. He said he'd think about it. I was in.

It's been intoxicating to deal this much. Trading gives you a feel of what other people think about players and it makes a league a ton more interactive. In the end, I will have traded Eli Manning, Frank Gore, Darren McFadden, Hakeem Nicks, Miles Austin, and Vincent Jackson, and my second-round pick. I'll end up with Peyton Manning, Matt Forte/Rashard Mendenhall, Calvin Johnson, and extra fourth, fifth, and seventh-round picks. I traded for extra picks in my rookie draft because I trusted in my ability to pick the right players. In this case, I'll have to find a player of second-round value with one of those three picks. Then again, I could bundle them for a trade up. Trader Zach approves.

Fantasy files; Best week ever?

Let's face it, fans of faux football: This has been the best offseason ever. What would you rather have, a long, boring free agency in March or this week of insanity? I think Twitter took this week over the top with updates about every 45 seconds today with new signings and rumors nonstop. Most of the news was bad for us fantasy-ers.

DeAngelo Williams re-signs with the Panthers. Boo! Williams drops in value for two reasons. Jonathan Stewart will steal touches and Cam Newton probably will poach a few touchdowns. Stay away from all Denver/Carolina running backs. I might benefit from this move in one league, though.

Sidney Rice to the Seahawks. The wha? He's a high-ceiling guy, but Seahawk fans are going to pine for the halcyon days of Seneca Wallace after watching the Whitehurst/Jackson show.

Santonio Holmes back to the Jets. I'll be honest. I get the same non-fuzzy feelings with Holmes as I do with Vincent Jackson. I'd love either of them on my real team, but on my fantasy team I'll pass at their current price.

Matt Hasselbeck to the Titans: Really not much of an impact. He's still a borderline QB2/3. Kenny Britt and CJ2K don't move. Jared Cook stays in intriguing TE2 range.
Santana Moss and roster churn to the Redskins: I didn't know Donte Stallworth was still in the league. Moss is a WR3, and a pretty unexciting one.

Lots of undrafted free agents sign with the Eagles: The Eagles let Jerome Harrison go, so someone from the youngster pu pu platter of Eldra Buckley (as if), Dion Lewis, Noel Devine, Graig Cooper and Derrick Locke will win the backup job. Or will they? Have fun in your Zealots-style drafts trying to figure out who to target.

My continued pursuit for mid-round picks in my keeper league continues. I started with an offer of a third round pick for Eli Manning and snagged a fourth. I have offers out for Vincent Jackson and Shonn Greene. My poor father thought he had a deal for LeSean McCoy that evaporated and his best remaining RB is Jonathan Stewart. I don't know if Greene is keeper-worthy but he's a better piece than J-Stew. If I manage to get as many as five picks in the 4th through 5th rounds, I'll need some help on what to do with them. This isn't much of a trade on draft day kind of crew. We promised to drink less as this year's draft goes straight into the family-attended post party. Some of us will comply with that request.

Fantasy files: Motorboatin'

My first podcast appearance was a fun experience. At least I knew I was going to be on a podcast. The second time was not quite the same.

I listen to piles of podcasts, mainly fantasy football of late. The first and still best is The Audible. You have the sports radio guy in Cecil Lammey, the die-hard film buff in Matt Waldman, and the all-around fantasy know-it-all in Sigmund Bloom. Cecil occasionally throws in sound clips. His new favorite references motorboating.

All men know what I'm talking about when I say motorboating. Think Wedding Crashers. In the show Cecil insists it refers to his deep love of larger running backs like Jerome Bettis, LenDale White, and the Lion rookie Mikel Leshoure. The verb comes out as "motorboating" a running back. If you think about it deeply, you get disturbing images. The point is not to do that.

The wife and I are discussing taking a trip to Italy in the spring. One city she wants to visit is Venice. She showed me a brochure last week referencing, since the city's short on roads, that all travel packages include a complementary motorboat ride. We both thought that was unintentionally hilarious. Remembering my connection with the audible, I tweeted Cecil this thought: As we looked at a brochure for an Italian trip that started with "complementary motorboat transfer to your hotel", I thought of @cecillammey.

Once again, using the term "motorboat" attached to a guy has bad connotations. Early in this week's podcast he teased motorboat. I thought there was no way that my comment out of the many he certainly receives on a weekly basis would be the one singled out. It was. About 57 minutes and 30 seconds into the podcast, Cecil read the tweet to his co-hosts and it got the longest, loudest laugh of the show.

Motorboating has never been so satisfying.

Fantasy files: First swipe at keeper strategery

It's 15 days until my local keeper draft and I do not have a strategy. I'm trying to offload Eli Manning and Vincent Jackson for mid-level draft picks to stock up. So far I have heard nothing from my leaguemates.

My roster: If nothing changes, I will start with Peyton Manning, Frank Gore, and Miles Austin. That's two injury risks and a guy who once dated Kim Kardashian. I draft in the 10 hole due to my semifinal appearance last year. Our starting lineups are QB, 2RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, D/K and a flex. The flex was WR/TE, making a WR/WR selection with my 1/2 picks interesting. We're voting on changing the WR/TE flex to RB/WR/TE. If that's the case and we can start up to three running backs, our league reverts back to going running back heavy. This does change the strategy. Note that this is a PPR league. If I have the 10th pick and say seven of the nine picks behind me are running back, I could panic and take the eighth best RB or I could go with the third best WR. I could counter the entire league by taking two WRs in these slots, locking up that position.

The eighth best RB or the 20th RB total scored 189 points last year. The third best WR or the 15th WR total scored 217 points. Yeah, the PPR format really changes things up. Even with the keepers taking the top 12 (or so) players off for QB, RB, and WR, maybe going with Matt Waldman's upside-down draft strategy would work. I'd get, say, Brandon Marshall and Mike Williams with my first two picks. By the time my third-round pick comes up, 29 running backs are off the board. Half the teams in the league have three RBs and I have one. I'd have to decide between guys like Joseph Addai, Marshawn Lynch, and Mikel Leshoure. I just Lepuked on my keyboard.

I went with Addai and Leshoure with my 3/4 turn picks. It's going to be very tough for me to pass on a RB with that first pick. Maybe it's the shiny object that the position represents. I don't believe in my ability to mine two pieces of gold out of the three RB roster slots I have left when I have dregs from which to select. Now if I can trade for those extra mid-round picks, I'd be able to hold onto an extra player or two until the season starts and depth charts start to shake out.

Fantasy files: Seeing past the hype

If there's one good thing about tonight's news that the players might not ratify the new CBA, it's that I will not have to read another article about Ryan Mathews. I understand that Mathews broke a lot of fantasy teams last year. I know that he finished the year strong with a three-TD game against the Broncos to end the season. He scored a lot of touchdowns in a short amount of playing time. Just shut up.

Certain players are getting too much attention and hype. Perhaps this annoys me solely because I would like to obtain said players in my upcoming keeper draft. If Mathews is there with my 1.10 pick in a keeper league (one QB, RB, and WR kept per team), yeah, I'll probably take him. But if one more bastard talks about his long runs and deep, soulful eyes I might have to start tweeting about the debt ceiling or So You Think You Can Dance to maintain my sanity.

Tim Tebow's on this list too. Did you know, as countless articles have told me, that Tebow was the top scoring QB in the season's final three games? Why yes, I do realize that the sun's coming up tomorrow morning. Listen, gents. I have Peyton Manning in this keeper league. Because of this, I do not need to concern myself with a backup QB until most teams have selected a guy. Tebow would be the perfect backup in that if he blows up, he's trade bait, and if he sucks like an evangelical Christian trying to back up his beliefs with facts, he goes onto the waiver wire in the sky. Now he's probably in the middle of the QB2 pile and I'm going to end up with Jason Campbell.

I'll list some players besides Mathews and Tebow who are getting too much attention. Jacoby Ford has superstar potential, but not with punks like Jim Day taking him in the 6th round of mocks. Austin Collie and the Amazing Technicolor Concussion is another one. I know he was the #1 scoring PPR receiver when he got injured. He scored 40+ points on my dad's fantasy roster. Losing to your dad in fantasy football is worse than the Titans losing to the Broncos last year at home in what was most likely Kyle Orton's sole career comeback victory.

Did you know that Arian Foster played with a torn meniscus last year? All I know is he was steamed crap on my college fantasy team for almost four years and when I drafted him in my keeper league last year, the pick was ripped off the board because we have a four RB limit on our rosters. I've heard about 100 versions of the "Dwayne Bowe scored 13 touchdowns in nine games and can't maintain that pace". Are you sure? You mean this guy isn't Jerry Rice? Jimmy Graham inexplicably is in the top six of the deepest TE class I've ever seen. Sure, he can do it, but knowing the Saints you'll bench him for his 2 TD game and start him for his two-catch game.

No one's talking about Chris Johnson and how he was a top-five RB even though in half of his carries he got tackled as soon as he touched the ball because the Titans' offensive line forgot how to run block last year. We'll just let it slide that the former Titans' offensive line coach is now the head coach. Bruce Matthews came over from Houston so what you saw from Chris Johnson last year will be the floor for the rest of his career. No more screen passes with his back to the defense, please.

Take a look at guys who had low TD numbers last year. Chris Cooley caught a career-high 77 passes. He only had three touchdowns so he finished a somewhat blah seventh in TE scoring. He's not seeing fewer targets with the Redskins having nothing at wideout. And the good news about bad quarterbacks, which the Redskins promise to have in abundance, is they are more accurate on short throws. Brandon Marshall is another target. In his career he's never been stabbed by a girlfriend or wife during an NFL season. He averaged eight touchdowns in his last three Denver seasons. In Miami he had three in 2010. Expect him to reach closer to his 100-catch standards this year with at least six scores.

Ask Your Fantasy Football Expert: Fantasy Douche

"It's fun to check the adsense in my RSS feed and count how many ads for Summer's Eve are running."

Find previous Ask Your Fantasy Expert interviews.

A name says so much, especially when trying to forge an identity in the fantasy football realm. One of the newest voices in the biz, Fantasy Douche, debuted in May and shortly will have 100 posts, all of them chock full of fantasy goodness. Unlike the rest of my interviewees, Fanatasy Douche would like to avoid a real name. For purposes of this space, I'll refer to him as Mr. Douche.

All fantasy writers name-dropped will get a link to their Twitter feed. We'll keep with the theme of my questions/comments in Titan blue and Mr. Douche's in Bruce Wayne black.

How did you get into fantasy football writing?

I realized that I was obsessive about the research end of it and a lot of that research was going to waste because I didn’t even want to talk to my league mates about what I was finding (competitive reasons). So I figured I needed some outlet for my thoughts. I think it also helps to have to put your thesis down in writing as it makes you demand more from yourself. I basically figured it was a good outlet that would make me better at managing my own team.

Tell me about fantasydouche.com. Reasoning for the name and the concept behind the site.

The name’s primary purpose is "let's not take ourselves too seriously here".

The concept behind the site is basically that the more you think about fantasy sports, the more fun it is. So why not take that to its ridiculous extreme and write investment theses for each player.

Tell me about your real-life NFL rooting interests.

I seriously don’t have any rooting interests. I don’t have a team. I think I actually end up rooting for teams and guys who I think are getting a raw deal from the press. Going into the Super Bowl I was very pro-Green Bay because I didn’t want Aaron Rodgers to endure what LeBron James is going through right now. I didn’t want to have to hear X number of more years of "Well, Brett won a Super Bowl and Aaron can’t win one."

You're very analytical in your approach to fantasy football. How do you combine the stats with the content-y goodness that will help your readers succeed with their teams?

My whole outlook basically boils down to "get a discount". Get a discount when you draft, get a discount when you trade. Get something for less than its inherent value and you’ll be ok. So all of my analysis is based on getting to that point. I think too many fantasy players try to predict the future perfectly, instead of relying on just getting things cheaply. Most of the time when you try to predict the future too perfectly, you end up pricing yourself out of upside (see Ryan Mathews and CJ Spiller last year). You have no cushion for things to go wrong. Because fantasy football is based on having an imperfect view of the future, we have to make sure we have some margin of error.

Where do you live?

California.

Tell me about your day job.

I use a pseudonym because I do have an actual career that I wouldn't want to affect with my fantasy sports writing. I will say that I am in an investment related business that requires a lot of the same analysis as fantasy football.

Do you have long-term goals with your fantasy football writing?

My long-term goal right now is to get more stuff right than I get wrong. My analysis has worked for me because I only have to draft the top 10 or so value ideas that I come up with. But if you're writing about every player, that's a lot more to handle. So for now I just hope I get more right than I get wrong. I believe that if you study enough, you can pick out the value situations, so I just try to do that.

How do you deal, as an in-demand fantasy expert, with all the league requests? Do you have a limit on leagues?

I haven't received a single invite to be in a league. So thanks for underlining my failure in this department. I am now going up to the top of the building and jumping off. [Zach note: You're welcome. Listen, fantasy experts reading this. Why would you not want to take on Fantasy Douche? For shame.]

The spouse question: Does your wife/gf/sig other have any issues with your obsession?

When she walks by and sees me with the spreadsheets open, she just rolls her eyes. She says I have to go to the bar on Sunday to "root for my guys". She comes to the bar sometimes but she brings a book.

Football or sex: which do you think of more?

I don't think about either of them as much as I think about world peace and how children are the future. You know, constructive shit like that.

Tell a story about a fantasy regret. Bad trade, bad draft pick, move you thought about making but did not, something on that realm.

I have one that's been haunting me for a few years. Before DeAngelo Williams went on his legendary run in 2008, I saw that his schedule was going to be cake (I want to say pre-Week 9). I had Larry Johnson and knew that the guy who owned DWill would do a deal straight up DWill for LJ. But I played the other owner with a regular season pot on the line in the same week that LJ had a really easy matchup. So I didn't make the trade because I was afraid that LJ would have a huge week against me (which was probably not that likely anyway).

DWill's entire career looks different because of the run he went on at the end of 2008.

Tell a story about a fantasy win. Great trade that worked out.

My favorite is when a trade that I get a lot of shit about turns out to be the good side of the trade. In a keeper league that I'm in I got a lot for LT as the wheels were starting to come off the bus. I also did something similar last year in the preseason when I traded Randy Moss and got Jamaal Charles in return (Charles counts as a very late round pick in this league and Moss was counting as a 2nd round pick). I think when I drafted Arian Foster last year I got the "a little early for sleepers" comment as well.

Where are you on the usual football Sunday? Is there a man cave?

I like to go to a bar where every game will be on and I don't have to make any food. There's nothing like getting the check at the end of the day and realizing you had breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same place.

Tell me about a hobby/interest outside of football.

Two words. Needle point. Or is that one word? Needlepoint. Needle point. I can't decide which one looks right.

Which fantasy writers are on your must-read list?

I like the Football Outsiders guys a lot. I also like the FootballGuys a lot too. For me it either has to go very numbers based, or very scouting based. I like the numbers because they make sense to me. I like the scouting because it's something I'm not capable of so it fills a void. I find the Lammey/Bloom/Waldman podcast to be very entertaining if for no other reason than you know you'll get at least one Lammey porn reference per podcast.

Better fantasy experience: Long-term league with friends or fantasy "expert" league?

Sure wish I knew... sure wish I knew.

Tell me about any plugs that you'd like. Podcasts, sites that you write for, expert leagues, anything.

Just fantasydouche.com. Almost all of the articles are free for a few days, so you can read everything on the site if you're just diligent about checking regularly. The only things that require a subscription are the draft guide and archived content. I'm also thinking about summarizing all of the posts into an ebook that would be free to subscribers and that non-subscribers could buy through Amazon for a couple of dollars.

Also, if you want a free Season Pass there are a few easy ways to get one by supporting the site. You can either support the site on Twitter, or write the best comment of the day. Rules for those promotions are available at this link.

Thanks to Douche, Mr. Douche for answering my questions. Follow him on Twitter.

Read previous Ask Your Fantasy Expert interviews.

Andy Miley

Jim "Taz" Day

Chet Gresham

Bryan Fontaine

Eric Yeomans

I Hate JJ Redick

That Podcasty Feeling

I a fan of podcasts. When I discovered a few years ago that Adam Carolla had a radio show and that its contents were dumped into itunes every day, I was hooked. Pretty soon thereafter I discovered The Audible, and my podcast life would never be the same.

I gave fantasy writing a whirl in 2005 with one Jim Day. It was a one-year experiment, and I discovered that while I enjoyed the writing, there were plenty of others who did it better and I decided to be a consumer of the content.

In the past two months, I entered the arena again. There are enough fantasy writers out there, and the audience numbers are in the millions. My blog vision was to interview the writers/experts, possibly get to know a little of the person behind the opinions, and get into this vast fantasy football community.

Last night was the pinnacle. Jim invited me on his podcast, the Twitter Roundtable. I started listening to the show when Jim and Andy Miley co-hosted. It was a chaotic but fun two-hour show. Andy moved on, and shortly will have a podcast of his own.

I wasn't sure if I was up for the roundtable portion of the show. Sure, I play in two long-running leagues and consume half a dozen fantasy articles a day, but I'm no expert. The open slot was for the second hour so I took it. At the last minute, Jim had an opening in the first hour so I jumped on the opportunity.

It was a sputtering start. I had my answers prepared for Jim's questions and called in. While I was on hold, I decided to test my mute button. It disconnected me. I got back on and Jim introduced me.

I think there was one question about the blog before Jim hit me with a question on Mike Vick. I responded quickly but Jim took over. From listening to thousands of hours of podcasts I know that three seconds of silence sounds like five minutes. There would be no silence with Jim in the room. I wasn't going to interrupt, which meant my chance to talk would be brief.

Things were a bit more organized during the second hour when Jana and Scott from Fantasy Sherpa and the 4th and Inches podcast (woo hoo, another podcast to listen to) joined the call. Taz and I got into an argument about Vernon Davis versus Jimmy Graham. Jim mentioned that Davis didn't have a QB and I tried to counter with Jim's long-running man-crush on one Alex Smith. I couldn't get a word in against the wily veteran.

One thing I learned from this experience was that I've been very cautious in my ranking of players this year. I give a lot of weight to guys who have done it before. One key to fantasy success is to diversify and take chances. I drafted Hakeem Nicks in the fifth round of a redraft last year and he was fairly unproven. I have the 10th pick in a keeper league, and taking Ryan Mathews/Jahvid Best is looking more and more intriguing.

It was a hectic 75 minutes. I was nervous for the first five minutes, especially when the focus is on me and my tiny blog. After that, when I knew the questions and had good answers, I relaxed. A couple of my canned humorous responses fell flat. Mentioning that I own a Pacman Jones jersey got a few laughs, along with my reference to Tom Brady and Tony Romo being "cute". As usual, I'm funnier when it's off the cuff.

The best part about throwing myself back into the fantasy scene is the feeling of community. Because just about everyone doing it does it because of passion, there aren't a bunch of rivalries or bad feelings. People who are in it are in for love, or a mental imbalance.

Thank you for your time and attention. Stay tuned for the next Ask Your Fantasy Football Expert, starring the man behind the site ihatejjredick.com.