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.