Fantasy Redemption

Jackson Brown wrote a line in his profoundly deep song "Barricades of Heaven," that aptly describes my annual fantasy football pilgrimage to Vegas - "Better bring your own redemption when you come."

2006 for my Co-Manager and myself was piss poor to say the least. I can still hear the words of my first round selection (I say "my" and not "ours" - because my Co-Manager wanted Rudi Johnson) LaMont Jordan resonate in my ears. The 3-8 record that our team managed was the worst fantasy football team that I've ever assembled. There were plenty of excuses to be offered up - poor draft spot, difficult league in regards to value that just wasn't present like in other leagues, etc. and so forth and blah, blah, 3-8. Scoreboard. We sucked. The sucktion of our team would actually pull me towards the television on Sundays and by the afternoon games, we were usually out of it.

"There's always next year," I would say. Well f'en A - next year is here! In the six years that my Co-Manager (who I like to call dad) and I have been in the WCOFF, this is our highest draft position ever.......fourth! And we'll take it. We'll take it all the way to the league championship, because we've already excepted that owning LaDanian Tomlinson just isn't in the cards for us, but drafting fourth, given the crap drafting spots we've had at the back of the bus, might as well be first.

These snake drafts, given the high level of competition isn't really a fair format. C'mon, who are we kidding? Who goes into a fantasy football draft and says, "hot damn! I'm drafting 12th?" The experience of spending a weekend in Vegas with people who share the same passion for football as we do and more importantly, the hobby of fantasy football - coupled with the fact that you are all playing for big dollars ($7000.00 for the league champion and $300,000 for the overall champion) make up for any structural flaws of the contest. I apologize for that last run on, poorly structured sentence, but it's 3:12am the night before Christmas - I mean the NFL season opener and I'm exhausted.

I have a plan for redemption in place. First - control the draft by ignoring ADP (Average Draft Position) and go back to my drafting philosophy of "Target Drafting". In short, this is where I make a list of the players that I want and simply go after them. If it means taking Wes Welker in the eight round, when he's going in the 10th round in most drafts, then damn the torpedos! My goal this year is to turn last year's 3-8 record on it's head and post eight wins this season in the eleven game format. I've never had a losing record in fantasy football, so to post such a humbling record has forced me to focus and reclaim the eye of the fantasy football tiger.

If you're in Vegas this weekend at the South Point Hotel and Casino, I'll be the guy wearing the fantasyfreakinfootball.com shirt and hat, with a Bill Cowher like determination. Somewhere between Frank Gore, Joseph Addai and Reggie Bush (sorry LJ), lies our first round pick. And this year, I guarantee that the L.A. Knights will smash down the Barricades of Heaven with some fantasy football rolling thunder.