Remember when your father played Fantasy Football? Or perhaps your big brother—way back before the Internet was around. I still get a sizeable dosage of “how it used to be” kind of talk at our family dinner table now and then, hearing what the glory days of Fantasy Football were like, and being lectured on the major differences in this new era of competition with FF. Stuff like, my Dad saying, “lemme show you the results of the 1990 Fantasy Season”, as I’m now summoned over to the family CPU for a long-winded history lesson having hear this line before. (Here’s what is shown below)
Fantasy Football Point Leaders 1990:
1) Randall Cunningham
2) Warren Moon
3) Barry Sanders
5) Joe Montana
7) Jerry Rice
8) Jim Everett
9) Steve Deberg
10) Timm Rosenbach
11) John Elway
12) Dan Marino
Notice the top two FF point getters for the 1990 season were QBs. Then Running Back Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas and Neal Anderson (Chicago) respectively. Out of the top 12 Fantasy Point leaders; eight were QBs and only one Wide Receiver! Naturally it’s Jerry looking back at this list—Montana to Rice was typical back in those days. Looking ahead, here’s my 2014 projected first round predicted draft in a Standard format. This ADP sequence could be close to your list, or it could be off by a few picks here or there. Below is my 2014 Fantasy Season Projected first round, and make no mistake, my P-R-O-J-E-C-T-E-D list is based seeing the preseason, coupled with my 15 years of playing Fantasy.
J.B’s 2014 Projected List:
1) LeSean McCoy
2) Adrian Peterson
3) Jamaal Charles
4) Matt Forte
5) Calvin Johnson
6) Eddie Lacy
7) Jimmy Graham
8) Demaryius Thomas
9) A.J. Green
10) Dez Bryant
11) Montee Ball
12) Petyton Manning
My list above is safe as most will attest, and while this is certainly not how the overall top 12 fantasy players will finish the season in points, still, it’s amazing to see the past years for comparison on positions—as I’m showing my dad and brother the above predictions, still sitting in my easy chair amid the family room.
I’ve grown up with the slogan, “It’s not what you Say, it’s how you say it.” I believe the same goes for Fantasy Football, it’s not WHO to draft, it’s HOW to draft—that’s important. Theories like replacement value, scarcity, and which position statistically repeats its Fantasy numbers more often, were suddenly introduced when FF blew up in the late 1990s, a good decade after the “Big three” QBs of all-time (Montana, Elway, Marino) racked up the top 12 most FF points for that grand season during 1990 golden era. At last check, my father and brother never purchased a Fantasy Mag, nor had the musings of a FF guru; most importantly, they never had access to automated stack ranking lists of players on a bright computer screen, dumbing down the (whose…who) research for the late summer live draft party at our house.
In the modern day period of FF, what’s always made me snicker is how FF owners prepare for their respective league drafts. Seeing which “Gag Mag” or so-called “expert” publication that sells for a fat $8.99 on a lonely drugstore bookstand—that your buddies purchased 20 min before draft time, with a “Six-pack” of beer in his right hand no doubt—a label on the newly acquired fantasy mag that reads: keep on shelf until August 2nd.
Approaching the checkout lane, this league mate of yours softly asks to the cashier clerk to throw in a quick-pick lotto ticket as well—because as we know Fantasy Football drafts are just pure luck? Right?
Looking back, it was always a surprise treat to see which fantasy source my league mates went with. Did they buy the magazine with the most pages? Or, the highest priced one? The glossy covered mag with Peyton Manning on the cover perhaps? Or maybe the matte version typed in black and white ink? Whichever magazine they selected, and I’m certain they were lured in by the phrase, “Expert Cheat sheets” or “Guaranteed League Title” just like those beautiful sirens atop that island in the book, “The Odyssey.” You weren’t coming the live draft empty-handed, because then you’d look like a rookie.
The rule was, and still is to a certain degree; you never left your Gag-Mag un-attended at your seat upon the war room—no different than luggage at an airport situation; mainly due to the high risk of somebody snooping inside your precious guide; and God forbid your best buddy actually saw your hand written cliff notes blathered on the inside cover. I often laughed when a guy would buy the same magazine as another owner, or when some genius would tear off the cover so other owners wouldn’t know which source he purchased. Either way, you kept it close to your vest, and with ultimate confidence no less—the freshly purchased lotto ticket still in your back pocket reminded you that this draft was your moment in time! Your Glory Season!
As the years went by, soon came the highlighter guy, you know, this is the owner who created his own Excel spreadsheet, only to paint each line with a different fluorescent, yellow, blue and even pink color streak, brushed horizontally across the page. This guy was against the grain for a number of seasons, he thought he was cool because flipping through a lengthy 130 page mag to reference a player—was just too much work. After he aligned his trusty ruler that he brought to the draft, (yes a wooden ruler…cheesy, I know) this owner would whip out his highlighter, swiftly stroking two heavy paint filled transcribes in horizontal fashion, pin-pointing that WR2 residing on his excel sheet, corresponding to line B-42. Crossing out all of his picks taken with his black sharpie—the smell of that ink made me sick, not to mention this whole highlighter process itself.
I suppose the only take away from “highlight guy” in the above example was—at least this poor bastard came prepared to the draft. The truth is nobody today is putting together his or her FF list from scratch, it’s just not happening. To put together a team now days, you really don’t have to do any thinking whatsoever, in fact, it’s more like sheep these days, especially when I join a random mock draft online—just for the fun of it of course.
The modern day chat room has a bunch of lame names as team owners, and the threads that post-up are of high comedy, most of the time. Point being, these mock rooms all follow the same “lemmings jumping the cliff” like early preseason projections, so when somebody takes a player presumably “Too early” the whole chat room freaks out! They call that person out by writing/saying, “Foul” or “What the heck?” on the post message board where all can see clearly. Highly pissed off now thanks to FF owner called: “Romo Witten in his Pants”, you’ve just screwed up this mock for us all!, exclaims the mock draft post message master of the group—that’s it, “I’m Audi five-thousand” (little 80s humor translated for I’m outa here)
Really? An owner with the so-called “reach pick” in the mock draft killed your practice session? Were talkin’ bout’ Practice…not the real game…but practice for crying out lould. Or even worse, says the mock draft postmaster, “he screwed up our entire mock!” C’mon man, Let’s get one thing straight, there’s no exact science to a draft, it’s never like what you envisioned going into it; moreover, fantasy drafts tend to resemble a good professor in college; you study the surface structure information thinking you’ve actually put in enough time to pass the exam, and tell yourself you’re ready for the mid-term; but in reality, this old-pro, (the professor that is)—buried you hard-core on test day. The professor, a rather clever fellow in his late 60s, went beyond the normal surface information that you memorized during your car ride into the university; and caused you to think on your toes. Getting that un-easy feeling in your school chair, you just knew you were in for a long 55 minutes of guesswork—Argh!
You know that feeling I speak of in the Fantasy Football world, let alone on your Monday morning college exam; when the Scan-Tron multiple choice paper remains blank for five full minutes as your mind predicts an: “F for Failure” on this bad boy, and the thought of summer school now quickly creeps in to your pre-frontal cortex. What’s needed at this point is a stiff drink from the student lounge local bar, to mask this epic fail of preparation—or “lack there of”—more like it.
Cutting to real point here, you’re going to have Dads and older brothers spitting their glory days of Fantasy Football-past into your left ear this upcoming draft season. How to draft is what you should be working on, not trying to cheat the exam coming in the near weeks for your league’s big draft day. When you’re ill-prepared and leaning back on the 1990s old-school methods to build your fantasy roster, you suffer. Certainly, the solution isn’t going by the pre-selection Auto-pilot player rank feature that most magazines provide as fact, Now Way! You’ll need to examine a preseason player that blinds your view like a diamond in the rough. The nifty Running Back for example, who gains 12 yards up the gut, absolutely ripping the defense while pumping both knees high as he’s finally brought down—nearly achieving beast mode.
On that point, I’m reminded by the average Fantasy Football idiot, who bellows out, “Whoa dude! That Running Back just gained 12 yards! Did you see that? Statistically that RB has been given 19 carries on the day, and he ran a 4.2 (40-yard dash) at the NFL combine, bro, he’s straight outta the SEC, from his humble beginning’s in 8th grade Jr. All-American. “I’m totally grabbing him this season!”
Instead, you should be asking yourself, “How did he just gain those 12 yards?”
By Jonathan Bauman
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