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."

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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.

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

Read previous Ask Your Fantasy Expert interviews.

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