DFL 2013 Week 3: You want an earlier post???

Fine.  This is what this week is:

A pox on all of you who won.

DFL 2013 Week 2: I am the Pain Bringer!!

Well, Saturday night and you know what that means!  Time to talk about last week's games!  So, here's the bad news... It's almost inconsequential to write/read about last week's games when this week's games have already started.  The good news is that hopefully non-DFL life has settled down a bit and I'll be posting a little earlier in the future.  I'm sure that nothing will get in the way of my posts from here on out:

So... I'll see you guys in the post season?  :-)

Let's take a look at the elimination league.  Three strikes handed out this week.  The Eagles screwed both Phil and Missy this week.  Cuz why not?  I mean, why would *anyone* have faith in anything coming out of Philly.  The third strike goes to Patrick for not actually making a pick this week.  Let's see what Pepper thinks of it:

Pick 'ems... Well, The Gs earned top marks this week, both going 5-1.  And they both went 4-2 last week.  I'm not saying that this is collusion, but if *this* is what you've decided to collude on...  Shame.  At least collude on something that matters.  Like, the actual league.  :)  Phil and Ben both pulled down 4-2 this week, while Crutch pulled up the rear with 3-3.  So, we've got a three way tie for first going on here.  Phil and the Gs.  (Which, BTW, sounds like a crappy Fox Comedy.  Gs - you interested in knocking out a script and selling it to Fox? Have your people call my people.)

Now, the league.Looks like we've still got three undefeated (congrats to rookie McClennen and o so close to the playoffs last year Terri), and three rounding out the bottom: Ben, Kookie, and RA Dave.  Loads of time to make a come back though.  Also, loads of time for the top teams to completely implode.  Well, except for me.  I'm pretty sure that my team is getting its complete crumble long around week 6.

Aaaand, it's time for the awards!

Skoot gets the "See guys? I told you so!" ceremonial dagger through the chest award.  His week 1 pick up of Julius Thomas really paid off.  Good for you!  Sadly, the rest of his team just went on strike this week.  Even Drew Brees.  In his defense though, Brees was going up a huge defen-  What?  The Saints were playing Tampa Bay?   Geez, Skoot, I think that you might be cursed.

Mike G pulls in the "I've got so many QBs, I don't know what to do!" award, presented by Hubris Enterprises.  22 points for his started (RG3) and 28 points for the back up (Vick).  Nope, nothing can possibly go wrong here!  (Editor's note:  Dude, trade away one of those QBs for a RB/TE/WR....  strike while the iron is hot!)

The "Hindsight is always 20/20" award goes to Melanie.  She she took a loss this week, but really, there's nothing to worry about as there wasn't really much that she could have done to turn things around this week anyways...

The "I spit on your puny kickers" WWE belt goes to Terri this week.  Has a questionable kicker, and a top shelf kicker and starts the questionable one.  But here's the thing.  TERRI NEEDS NO KICKER!!!  

The "Stupid partial points!" award goes to both Patrick and Missy this week.  The game ended in less than a point difference in the scores.  The could have both walked away with a tie.  But Patrick kicked Missy in the what nots said "I'll get you a tie for Mother's Day" and walked away with the victory.

Patrick gets no other award this week.  He does get the lesson never to trust anything out of the Big Apple however.  His DEF lost him a point and a quarter, which made the game that much closer.  It's really a shitty feeling to know that literally NOBODY could have served you better than your starter.  And I just want to rub this in just a bit.    It would only have been more delicious if they had gotten one less INT, and cost him the game.

Missy gets the "I stand by Miami" award for starting Brian Hartline instead of James Jones.  GB O > Miami O.  Every time.  

Ben earned himself the shame of not hiring a psychic to help him out this week.  I mean, who could have foreseen that Sam "Look Mom, I'm in the NFL!" Bradford would put up a 24 point game???   and move on for this one....

McClennen on the other hand get the "I was told there'd be cake" serving spatula.  Drafted Brady.  Solid Choice.  Never has a bad game.  Good system they have up there in New England.  What has Brady done so far?  Badly 17 points.  Lucky for McClennen, the rest of his team is really stepping up.  So, He goes on to stay undefeated...

Kookie pulls in "But I followed Phil's advice!" totem.  Almost 31 points from his kicker and DEF combined.  Though I do say DEF and Kickers win games, I'm going to throw a caveat on there that the rest of the team needs to show up too.

Crutch .... well not much to say about Crutch at the moment....  Except that Tony Romo won him the game and was rewarded by being benched for Phil Rivers.  I hope that Rivers can keep you happy Crutch.

An that's about all the games for this we- O right.  My game.

RA Dave vs me.  I delivered the beat down of the week by almost 74 points.  Just to be sure that we're on the same page, the margin of victory in this game was more than 4 teams put up total this week.  Everything just kinda fell into place for me this week.  So, Hurray Phil!

(And yes, I'm fully aware that if this was a behind the music based on my fantasy season, now would be the point that the announcer says "Everything was riding high, until tragedy struck."  So, I would like to personally apologize to the Rodgers family for the horrible, horrible fate that is awaiting your QB son.)

DFL 2013 Week 1: So that'show it's going to be, huh?

Here we are... Saturday night, almost Sunday morning, and the blog post has nary been started.  Another late blog post, and you know who's to blame?  Nope!  Not Chuck Testa.  And you can be sure as shit it's not your humble commissioner. No, I think that the blame falls squarely on the NFL. I mean, a game on Thursday night?  Shit like that is going to make people go crazy.  People like Peyton Manning.  But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

For you newbies (like McClennen) or people who only read the first post of the season and then ignore it religously (Patrick), here's how we do.  Three sections:  Elimiation League, Pick 'em League, and the actual DFL itself.  So, without any further ado, let's get into it.

(On a related note, I'm going to try to go high brow here.  Did you know that in Elizabethan times, "Nothing" was slang for vagina.  So, Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing", was actually a fairly dirty double entendre.  OK so really... no more ado here.  On to the games.)

Elimination League.
Right out of the gate, two strikes were thrown down.  One for Pittsburgh Maulers.  The lesson learned here is that you should never, never pick Tampa Bay to win anything.  EVER.  The other strike is particularly delicious as it is handed proudly to Melanie.  It's not important who she picked.  What's important is that this is the third strike in a row that she's taken.  That's right, Melanie was eliminated in week two last year.  Could she, would she, get eliminated in week 2 again this year?  I'm sure that she'll take a safe bet in week 2.  (Uh-oh.... Oakland.  Sure, they've got a 5 point advantage on the spread and they *are* playing Jacksonville at home, but ... esh.)

Pick 'Ems
8 people in, right off the bat...  OK, I can dig that.  Let's get those votes in early folks!  Plenty of time to catch up.  Especially with how we pick.  :)  Anyway, Patrick and Phil top the picks this week, going 5-1. (Both of us took a hit on Patrick's game which, let's admit it, was an anomaly.)  Ben, Skoot, and the Gs took second place going 4-2.  (And if you're keeping track, Yes, now Skoot has officially picked more games this year than all of last year.)  Crutch and R.A. Dave are low men on the totem pole with 3-3 picks.

The DFL
The games, o boy, the games!  It looks like there's a big disparity in the teams this year.  4 of the 6 games were decided by more than 20 points.  Since it's the first week and the player's union has restricted the amount of practice that the teams are allowed to have, players might still be shaking off the dust.  So, I'm not going to say that there are two classes of teams, but let's see how the next couple of weeks shake out.  Probably is going to be a bit of normalization going on.

However, I will say that I'm at the top of the heap after week 1.  Yay, you bastards!  I'm going to drink this in, cuz I think that we all know that it ain't gonna stay this way the whole season.  Ah... I can now safely report than it is, in fact, good to be the king.

Lest we forget (because Yahoo! seems to have), the beatdown of the week goes to Teri who delivered it unto Patrick.  Well played, Teri.  As to Patrick, for shame.  You cost us both perfect picks this week.  Cowboy up, honky tonk!

Now, let's hand out some awards, shall we?
The Tina Turner Award goes to Phil for being "Simply the best; better than all the rest!"  (And if any of you bastards even thinks about making a joke about the beating that I'm about to take, you're out of the league.  OK, you're not out of the league, but you'd have to wear the cone of shame.)

The Deju View Crown of Shame goes to Crutch this week.  Crutch finished as King of the Losers last year.  And now, he starts it off again as the highest scoring week 1 losers.  Well, played, Crutch.  Not sure if you planned this or not, but golf clap nonetheless...

The What D'you Do Pendant goes to McClennen this week.  Yep, pulled off a win, pretty hardily no less.  Makes sense though, I mean Brady is his QB.  Oh, wait, Brady was held to 10 points?  Well, who was his top scorer?  A Tight End?  WTF?  And number 2?  Reggie Bush?  From DET?  Nothing good comes out of Detroit. I don't know what wizardy you have pulled, but the animated corpse of Chris Farley is confused:

The Let's Give the Boy a Hand! diadem goes to RA Dave for somehow figuring out way to not receive the beatdown of the week, even though only 2 people on his team got into the double digits.  So, here's another gold clap for the overly tatooed Kapernick.  (Also, note to myself, get off the 80s pop music references...)

The Peter Vs. The Giant Chicken handcuffs go to both Bena nd Missy this week.  It was predicted to be a tight game, and it very much was.  Less than two points separated this game.  (OK, maybe this partial point this was a good idea...)  Quite a nail biter.  But seriously folks. I think that we can all agree that Missy has gotten quite enough victories this season already.  Time to spread the wealth around, Missy.  To say it plainer: lose more.

The Giddy Up, Payton jodhpurs goes to Terri for riding Manning to victory this week.  Had Manning gotten around what he was predicted to, Missy would have been down about 30 points and just barely would have lost.

The Is Everyone Taking Crazy Pills award goes to Patrick.  Started Wilson.   Solid RB on the Giants.  Nothing to write home about, but good enough to hold his own.  Went negative points.  Anquan "I'm well into my 30s and on a new team" Bolden, on the other hand pulls down 20 points.  Whaaaa?

The Foreshadowing ribbon goes to Mike for seeing just how badly he was going to get pounded, and naming his team accordingly.  4 players clocked in at less than 5 points.  Eesh... plenty of time to change things up, man.  Maybe drop that bum of a QB that you've got starting?  ;-)

The No Time for Yo Jibba Jabba gold chain goes to Melanie for very quietly rocking the game.  Wasn't quite able to make it to triple digits, but dayum.  I did no thting that this was going to be an almost 30 point blow out!

The St Elmo's Fire Shotglass goes to Kookie this week.  Two reasons.  First HIS TIME IS NOW AND HE's COMIN' ALIVE!!  Of course, he's gotta start winning games, but I think that a quick shot John Parr is just what the doctor ordered.  And the second reason for the award?  It conveniently doubles as a shot glass, just in case the season is as long as the first game seems to indicate...

The Your Uppance Will Come award goes to Skoot.  He called it.  Crap on a Stick may just be engraved in the annals of the year.  Big win, plus he's just picked up a great TE before week 1 was even done.  What's that?  His starting TE was almost as good as the one that he picked up.  Time for a decision, sir....

OK that's about it.  Good luck to everyone in week 2.

DFL Hall of Fame

OK to make it up to everyone for such a late Kick Off blog post, here's a post that has been on mind for a bit.  Hall of Fame.  So, we'll know who the winners were since the inception of the league.  A bit of history, if you will.

So, here we go!

2002: TheDominicanFootallLeague

Gold - Pillow Clown (Whitey)

Silver - Go Pack Go (Jason - Phil's coworker)

Bronze - Always Touch Down There (Miah)

The inaugural year! Really, the only people who had any idea were Whitey and Skoot.  Everyone else was kinda drafting blind, as most of us didn't really know anything about football in general.  Also, this was the year that we had the biggest trade veto that I remember.  Whitey offered someone for Curt Warner.  I accepted, but Jason flipped out so bad about it being a lopsided trade that I reneged on it.  (As a follow up, Warner was hurt before the end of the first week, out for the rest of the season.)   10 man league.  Woah - Bill was in this year?

2003:  The Dominican Football League

Gold - White Vanilla (Whitey)

Silver - Da Clown Stompers (JM -who? edit:  Jenny - forgot about Jenny!)

Bronze - Pirate Monkeys (Phil - Yay!)

Our first back to back championship, though it would certainly not be the last.  Man, did we really only have 8 teams this year???  Man,I do not remember these things!

2004:  Dominicana

Gold - Asshaitians (Skoot)

Silver - PickMe (Ben)

Bronze - No Clownin (JM - again - who was this guy??  edit:  Still Jenny)

Our second Champion is crowned.  Skoot and Kookie enter the "Who can make pick ups the earliest" war.  Works out very well for Skoot, not so much for Kookie.  Woah!  Ben pulled in second place.  Good on ya, Ben!  Still an 8 team league.

2005:  Dominicana 

Gold - What the deuce? (Whitey - again, damn)

Silver - The Pork Chop Express (Patrick)

Bronze - ITouchDownThereDaily (Miah)

Patrick's first year in the league and he's already showing us up.  Still an 8 man league

2006: Dominican Football League 06

Gold - The MarieTards (Marie)

Silver - Ninja Pirates (Phil - Yay!)

Bronze - The Pocket Pollys (Melanie)

Thus begins the reign of the ladies in the DFL.  Also, Marie's team name is probably the best name that we have ever had in the league and remains so to this day. League is expanded out to 10 teams (with Jennie and Mike G joining....)

2007:  Dominicana 2007

Gold - Chewie's Dad (Whitey)

Silver - Odoyle Rules! (Skoot)

Bronze - Shockers (Missy)

See?  All ladies getting medals.  Also, this is the year of Crap on a Stick.  Fun fact.... even with Skoot making mad pick ups for Crap on a Stick, Kookie *still* had 2 more moves than anyone else in the league.  And here is where the league topped out at 12 people.  (Well, technically, only Missy joined - and showed the league who's who - and a bot.)

2008: DFL v2.0 (2008)

Gold - Hellboy (Jennie)

Silver - QuitYourJibbaJabba (Phil)

Bronze - 4theL8dz (Whitey)

This was the first year that Phil took over as commissioner.  Previously, it was all Skoot.  This was the first year that we really started to change up the rules, added the tracking of the picks metagame, and started the elimination league.  Joy's first year in the league.  Also, this was the first year that Missy stole gold from Phil when Feagles shanked an easy (though meaningless in the NFL) field goal in our championship.

2009:  DFL v2.1 (2009)

Gold - Team That Guy  (Patrick)

Silver - Scooby Doo (Missy)

Bronze -   NanaMomma (Joy)

A few more changes coming down the lane this year.  I think that it was this year that I was faithfully doing write ups until week 9 or so, when Skoot changed web hosting providers.  The bad thing is that all of the previous write ups were taken with him that year.  We didn't continue with the write ups for the rest of the year.

2010:  DFL v2.2 (2010)

Gold - Ator's Braid (Joy)

Silver - Lez is Mo (Marie)

Bronze - Aussie Rules! (Whitey)

This was Whitey's last year in the league and he *still* winds up on the medal stand.  Bitter.  Skoot took over the commissionering back this year.

2011:  Dominican Football League

Gold - Popcorn Boobs (Joy)

Silver -  Team Station (Ky;e)

Bronze - The Masters of Evil (Kookie)

Woah!  Kookie on the medal stand?  Plus Joy was the second back to back champion in the history of the league. Good year, good year.  

2012:  DFL 2012

Gold - ScoobyDoo (Missy)

Silver - Superion (Melanie)

Bronze - Philthy Bastards (Phil)

Two new players join the league.  (Kyle and Marie bowed out; Crutch and Terri G in.)  Neither of them went into the playoffs, but this was probably the closest year that we had in both the play off race and the pick 'em league.  Also, this was the year that Melanie set the record for the quickest elimination in the elimination league.  (2 strikes in 2 weeks.)  We settled on diamondshaft.blogspot.com as the official location of the write ups.  Thanks to Kookie and Ben, this was the first year in the history of the league where there was a weekly write up the entire year.  And lastly, this was the second time that Missy stole Phil's gold.

2013:  DFL 2013

It's up for grabs, you silly sods!  Go get 'em!

Got any extra memories?  Comment them up, cowboy!

IT IS TIME!!!! DFL 2013 Kick Off!

(Editor's note: I had actually written most of this on Thursday afternoon, but I didn't get a chance to publish it until  Sunday night.  See you you can pick out the things that I wrote on Thursday, versus Sunday!)

Well, well, well... It's only about 7 hours until kick off and we still haven't gotten any Kick Off blog port for DFL 2013.  Though this certainly doesn't bode well for the rest of the season, here we are.  :)

Draft Recap

Because I somehow messed up the settings, we had a random draft order this year.  Sorry, Skoot...  I'll try not to Patrick it up next year.  (What's that?  Oh, I just used Patrick as a verb to mean "trying and failing to do a simple task."  I'm trying to get some traction with it.)  So, here is the draft order that I got:

1. It's Not Detroit (Melanie)
2. Cagenado (Patrick)
3. GG Purple Dragons (RA Dave)
4. Crap on a Stick 2 (Skoot)
5. The Derailers (McClennen)
6. Scooby Doo (Missy)
7. WrathPhil (Phil)
8. The Mud Turtles (Terri)
9. #poundsign (Mike G)
10. Knightly Yardage (Crutch)
11. |__O--|--( |=| (Ben)
12. CLE Rocks (Kookie)

And here is How Yahoo! Ranked us after the draft (this will be known as the WTF Yahoo!? graph at the end of the season):

1. McClennen:  A+ (11-3-0, with 1,296 points)
2. Skoot: A- (9-5-0, with  1,245 points)
3. Melanie: A- (12-2-0, with 1,245 points)
4. Crutch: A- (11-3-0, with 1,251 points)
5. Phil: B (9-3-0, with 1,211 points)
6. Ben: B (7-7-0, with 1,229 points)
7. RA Dave:  B- (5-9-0, with 1,180 points)
8. Patrick: B- (6-8-0, with 1,172 points)
9. Missy:  C (7-7-0, with 1,139 points)
10. Terri:  C (3-11-0, with 1,143 points)
11. Kookie:  C (3-11-0, with 1,145 points)
12. Mike G: D (1-13-0, with 1,078 points)

I'm just going to throw something out there...  The people in the Google hang out are generally on top of the draft rankings.  I'm not saying that it helped us, I'm just sayin'...  

(And don't give me that jibba jabba about Kookie being in the hang out and being ranked 11th - That's higher than he usually finishes and  he was only there for about half of it.)

Phil's Rankings

Yeah,I get to do that cuz I'm commish and all.  If you want your own rankings, become commish!  (OK, you can just throw a blog post down.  I'll takes what I can gets.)  Because doing a real ranking based on merit taking into account off season moves, surgeries, etc is (a) hard and (b) time consuming, I'm just going to do my own brand of tomfoolery.  That's right, it's time for ranking by team names!

Cagenado - Alright, Patrick....  I'm not sure where you came up with this team name, but it is delicious.  Combining all of the beauty of Sharknado with all of the horror of Nic Cage, this is a great team name.  Don't get too comfy though.  You won't be siting at the top ever again this season, if history is to be believed.

WrathPhil - Yeah, I'm still doing the pun this.  And yes, I'm full of wrath.  This is my year, fuckers.  And my team name is hilarious.

It's Not Detroit - Yay!  I like to think that I might have had a little bit of a hand in this name.  The Kookies are moving to Clevland and so I sent them the Hastily Made Clevland Promotional Video.  I still chuckle at this video.  Right on, Melanie.

GG Purple Dragons - Kinda Random, but hella-on point.  RA Dave says that he's here to win and he's willing to get steroids pumped up Russian ladies on his team to do so.  Kind of explains Kaepernick now...

CLE Rocks - Again, the Kookie are going to Clevland.  Not quite so funny as Melanie's team name, but on topic.  Song isn't bad either, if you're into that sort of thing.  (And this will be the highest that Kookie is rated all season, outside of the fabled "Bless His Heart, he's trying" list, which somehow he still doesn't top but defintitely top 5.)

Crap on a Stick 2 - I had forgotten where the original Crap on a stick came from, until Skoot mentioned it in on the league forum.  Way to cite history, bro.  Now, if only we can get Skoot to finish in last place, like his predecessor did....

Knightly Yardage - Is there a pun here?  If there is, I'm missing it.  But always conjuring up D&D memories is good, so right on.  You *did* draft Romo, but I'm not holding that against you... yet.

The Derailers - Frist year is always a little worrisome.  You're never sure how far you can push the team name element without being offensive.  For example, I expect that Patrick wants to name his team "festering ass wound" every year, but he doesn't, just to be safe.  Nothing *wrong* with this team name, but I think that McClennen can do better next year.

Scooby Doo - How many years have we been doing this?  And the same name every year.  I'll give it to you for consistency, but you've gotta move on, Missy.  For realsies.  Maybe shake it up next year by doing with "Shaggy" or something. I dunno.  Name your own team and deal with the consequences!

#poundsign - Going a little meta, but not really doing it for me.  Plus, you're really opening yourself up to homophobic comments.  Careful, Mr. G.  Careful...

The Mud Turtles - Hmmmm... again, is there a reference I'm missing?  I'm not getting this one.  But at least you're actually a human readable team name.  Which brings us to the bottom of the barrel:
|__O--|--( |=| - Dammit, Ben.  This shit is going to get old as hell fast as hell to cut and paste every time.  So, I might just call your team hangmen or something.  You get points for creativity, but obviously not that many since you're bottom of the pile here.

Last Minute rule change on the DEF

Sorry to anyone who was looking at the projected points earlier in the week and expecting thier DEF to be pulling in 20+ points.  While tweaking the points this year, I had checked the "DEF gets points for stopping behind the line of scrimmage."  What I didn't notice was that it defaulted to 1 point per time!  So, I tweaked that and the return yards.  So, that's why the points estimates came *way* down.  Sorry about that.  :)

OK fuckers, it's on.

So, here we go!

Good luck to everyone this year.  Except for people playing me in a given week.  Also, anyone harboring Tony FUCKING Romo.  Or NoName McPeePeePants.  For those people, screw, y'all.

Fantasy Football for newbies

So, let me preference this post with this disclaimer:  NFL football and any fantasy football based on it is fairly complicated.  This post is intended for people new to football or fantasy football, and can in no way be considered a full explanation of either game.  This is more of a quick overview to get someone started.  Specifically in the fantasy football league that I am running this year.

We good?  OK, here we go!

The Leagues

The NFL has 32 teams, which play for 17 weeks. (There are divisions an conferences, but that doesn't really concern us.  So, we'll leave it at that.)  After that 17 weeks, they will jump into the playoffs.  (Again, we really don't care about that, so we'll move on.)  Each team in the NFL will have one BYE week that they don't play.

The RJCFFL has 12 teams (or maybe 10, depending on whether we get the last two teams), which play for all of the NFL regular season.  The RJCFFL will have 3 weeks of playoffs to determine the ultimate champion of the league.  So, that means that the last three weeks of the NFL regular season are the RJCFFL post season.  The top 8 teams in the RJCFFL will play in the playoffs.  The rest of the teams will quietly sit it out on the side until the end of the season.   These playoffs will be a single elimination tournament. (1st seed versus 8th seed, 2nd seed versus 7th seed, etc.)  The seeding is done based on the regular season record.  The RJCFFL does NOT have a BYE week.

Both leagues will be head to head match ups between two teams.  Higher score wins.

Positions

Each plays in the NFL plays at a certain position.  These are the positions that we care about:

Quarterback (QB) - Pretty much the brains of the field.  He tells the other players what the play will be, determines when the play starts, and takes the ball initially.  Generally (like on 99 out of 100 plays), he'll be one to throw the ball.  Also, there's only 1 QB on the field at any given time.

Running Back (RB) - These are the guys who line up behind the quarterback.  You know the guy who is handed the ball from the QB and runs into the mess of people in front of him?  That's the Running Back.  There are generally several good running backs on a team.  Many times, there will be more than one on the field at once.  Also, not only do they run the ball, but a lot of them will catch the ball as well.

Wide Receiver (WR) - These are the guys who line up on the far left and right side of the fields before the ball is snapped.  They run down the field and catch the ball.  Generally, there is one really good WR on the field (the QB's favorite) and maybe another pretty good WR per team.  There are anywhere from 2-4 WRs in the field at any given time.  

Tight End (TE) - This is a bit of an odd position.  Tight Ends line up on the line of scrimmage, and are allowed to catch the ball (offensive linemen are not).  So, sometimes they are used just as much as receivers and sometimes they are just used to block.  It varies wildly from team to team.

Kicker (K) - There are actually two types of kickers:  place kickers (who put he ball on a stand before the kick it) and punters (who drop kick the ball).  Place kickers are the ones who do any kick off, field goals, or extra points.  Punters are called in when the offense is not able to move the ball well enough to keep playing.  (Punting is the last thing that the offense does before turning the ball over.)  For the RJCFFL, we only care about the place kickers.

The only position that we care about in the RJCFFL that I didn't mention above is the Defense (DEF).  This is pretty self-explanatory.  Pretty much you are drafting the entire defense of a team.  This just simplifies things a bit.

A note about position draft order.  Everyone's got a different draft strategy, and I've only won one league in all of my years of playing.  So, take this for what you will. I have found that QB are *really* important.  There are only 32 starters out there and 12 people in the league.  I wouldn't say that they are necessarily a #1 pick for your team, but you'll know it if you've got a bum QB more than any other position.  DEF and K?  The top shelf of those positions will win games for you week to week.  However, outside of the top shelf, there's not a lot of difference between average kickers.  So, don't draft them too early.  WR/RB?  That'sthe bread and butter of your team.  Make sure to get a bunch of 'em.  TEs....  Last year I was taken off guard with how much they were used.  So, it's kind of a chance this year.  Try to get a good one early, but don't sacrifice a good RB/WR for one.  My two cents at least.

So, what's this about the bench?  Well, you'll have some players on your team that you don't play in a given week.  They sit on your bench and don't score for that week.  They can be of any position.  So, why do we have a bench?  You'll want to bench a player for short term injuries, if they are on a BYE, or if they have a bad match up.  (For example, if you have a decent DEF, but that team is going up against an undefeated team this week, then you'll probably  want to bench that DEF for that week.)

That's about all that I have to say about the NFL per se.  So, let take a look at the league.

RJCFFL

So, first and foremost, bookmark this url:  http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/rjcffl . 

This'll be the base of our discussion here.  Across the top of this screen, you'll see a menu.  "League", "My Team", etc.  When you hover the mouse over anything here, you'll get more sub-menus.  Any time that I want you to click on a link, I'll probably be referring to up there.

So, let's take a look at your stuff, shall we?  Head to My Team -> Edit Team Settings.  Here's where you'll set a team name, set your helmet, etc.  Head in there and poke around.  At the very least, you'll want to choose a team name.  Yahoo! picks some very odd team names by default.

Now, just click on My Team.  This will bring up your team's roster.  Right now, it's empty.  But, week to week, you want to log in, move some players around, etc.  Also, you can set your team slogan.   By default it'll say something like "Team Slogan..."  Generally, this is used for smack talk week to week.  (It is encouraged, but let's keep it semi-civil, please.)

Also, week to week, You'll probably want to hit the Players link.  This will show you a list of available players (and taken players, if you're looking to trade).  As a heads up, Yahoo! will sort these players by "Rankings".  I'm not entirely sure how these rankings are put together.  Generally, I'll sort by "Fan Pts" (the last column) when I'm looking to pick up or drop a player.

Right now, you can take a look at Draft Central -> Pre-Draft Rankings.  Here you can sort what you want.  You'll see that Yahoo! has already ranked the players.  So, that is a pretty good guide if you have no idea about players.  (Really, in the first round or two of the draft the rankings are *really* solid.)  You can also set your pre-draft rankings to help as a guideline during the draft.  I've kinda stopped doing this because once the draft starts, I tend to get frazzled and ignore this anyways.  But his is a good practice to at least get familiar with players names, positions, and teams.  

When it is time for the draft, there will be a pop up that appears on the home screen of the league.  So, don't worry about that.  The nice thing is that during the draft, the tool will display a player's BYE week.  

Now the tool that I use the most week to week is the Stat Tracker.  Just click on the Stat Tracker over to the side. It'll give you real time updates of all of the games in the league.  It's really nice to have while your watching the game.  Or, if you're out, I'm pretty sure that there's a mobile app.

I think that's enough to get you started.  As an FYI, you will NOT receive any notification from Yahoo! if somoene offers you a trade.  So, if you want to trade with someone you might want to call them or IM them or email them or something to make sure that they know about the trade.

I think that's enough to get you started.  If you have questions, please let me know.

Tomorrow is my birthday

Tomorrow, I turn 35.  For some, I’m quite the old man.  For others, I’m practically a baby.  As we as a species have longer life expectancies, “mid-life” changes and the perspective of what is young versus what is old changes.  This puts me in the unique position of having learned a lot, and also accepting that I have a lot to learn.  When you reach a certain age, you don’t suddenly become wise.  For many it could even be said that wisdom is never achieved.  This is all noise.  Let me get to my point.

There are a lot of bad things going on in the world.  Admittedly, there have ALWAYS been a lot of bad things going on in the world.  People have always had ways of dealing – turning to God, taking advantage, giving up etc.  I think, however, things seem worse lately because we’re all so connected.  Technology has increased the ability to communicate exponentially, and has given a voice to almost everyone. 

Some people have some great things to say, some have some terrible things to say. Some make stuff up just for the sake of getting a rise out of others.  Some wonderful achievements have been made, some terrible events have occurred. 

It seems now that we’re always tuned in, we’ve truly stared into the abyss, and it is staring back.  It seems that tragedies, drama, stress, anxiety has permeated into every home and now the terror of external tragedies has come home.  I’ve always been pretty anxious, but I must admit that lately my dander is up quite a lot. 

I’m not saying the answer is to retreat back into ignorance, but more to see what we have, and think of how we can use it to positively influence one another.  So, for my birthday, you don’t have to wish me a happy birthday, or buy me a present. 

Be kind to someone.  Reach out and speak to someone you haven’t in a while for whatever reason.  Help a stranger.  Or even just unplug for a while, and take time for yourself.  Listen to your inner monologue without outside distraction.  You might learn something about yourself, or someone else.  You might reconnect. You might be reminded why you disconnected.  I’m hoping that maybe we can all focus on the positive, and not be so damn negative all the time.

I don’t know.  I’m going to unplug myself for a while, take some time to get to know Erik again.  The 25 year old is much different than the 35 year old, but I still think there’s a lot to teach one another.  Plus, I have a family now, and I’d rather they get to know the kind and giving me, not the stressed and nervous me.

Peace.