The (slow) evolution of a fantasy team

By Os Davis  |   Sunday, August 31, 2008  |  Comments( 6 )

Fantasy Football
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One of the greatest things about the national obsession with fantasy football is the amount of openly social navel-gazing a fantasy owner is allowed in the post-draft glow; even more fun than debating your favorite team’s draft picks in April/May is bragging/lamenting about your own performance on your own selection day.

For this writer, the fun over the weekend was all to be had at the slowest fantasy draft in the known universe, a.k.a. RealFootball365.com’s in-house bonanza, a virtual draft which apparently reflects the super-busy weekend lifestyles of our hardworking, hard-playing crew. In any case, one great thing about such a slo-o-o-o-o-w procedure is that extra analysis (read: lethal over-thinking) is possible.

So after the first two days of our draft, the mighty fighting Os Holes seek your help in saving an already too run-heavy team. The picks and – ahem – thought process look something like follows.

Round 1 (No. 6 overall): Joseph Addai. For the first time in four years of fantasy play, my guys ended up in the first half in the first round and immediately upon receiving notification of this “high” spot, this team owner said, “Hello, Joseph Addai.” Indeed, the top four went bam-bam-bam-bam through everyone you’d expect, with LaDainian Tomlinson, Brian Westbrook, Adrian Peterson and Steven Jackson (why?) going quickly. After having worried myself over possibly having to choose between pseudo-gimps Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, our No. 5 in Anthony Carroll’s Roc-a-Fellas bailed me out of a hard place and into a no-brainer by choosing Marion Barber at fifth overall. Again, hello, Joseph Addai!

Round 2 (No. 19): Jamal Lewis. Had the Os Holes had to draft late in the first round, they probably would have gone with Lewis anyway. Though Lewis has toted the rock quite a bit in recent years and has just turned (gasp!) 29, the truth is the man put in his second-best fantasy season ever in Cleveland in 2007 and is running behind one of the NFL’s finest lines. Expect big (fantasy) things from Lewis in 2008 and this ain’t just blowing smoke out the Os Hole.

Round 3 (No. 30): Ben Roethlisberger. All right, a bit of a panic move here. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but in the RF365L, Brady and Manning went in Round 1, with Tony Romo and Drew Brees going in the second. Round 3 oddly had owner Mike “Funky Cold” Medina picking up Derek Anderson (WTF??!??!, in the parlance of our times) early. Envisioning a short-term future in which a choice between Brett Favre and Eli Manning loomed, the Os Holes bailed quickly to go with Big Ben.

Round 4 (No. 43): Julius Jones. This year, the league has added another “starter.” An additional player must be named to the mysterious RB/WR position (can we just call this the Reggie Bush spot?), thereby making brains explode across the country in trying to figure out just who your sixth-best skill-position player might be. Mine’s Julius Jones, who, upon breaking free from Dallas, figures to run wild for the Seattle Seahawks; take my word for it. Of course, last season, this owner touted the virtues of ol’ New Orleans Reggie and that got us to a whopping .500 record.

Round 5 (No. 54): Laurence Maroney. Another of my main men backs up the big three. Unless, of course, he’s trade bait. (Heh heh heh.)

Round six (No. 67): Chester Taylor.

Round 7 (No. 78): Deuce McAllister. I know that we’re supposed to be drafting WRs high this year, but damn if the board at WR wasn’t uglier by Round 4 than Harvey Dent in the final reels of "The Dark Knight." Heck, Round 3 alone saw Marques Colston, Andre Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Ocho Cinco, Torry Holt, Steve Smith, Plaxico Burress and Anquan Boldin all come off the board. Who’s left, I ask you? Tell you what: The Os Holes are looking for a sudden return to 1970s grind-it-out-football in 2008. What’s that? Not gonna happen? Aw, sub-.500, here we come!

Round 8 (No. 91): Isaac Bruce. Now here’s a guy the Os Holes’ve been scouting since summer anyway. Armed with the high-flying Mike Martz system and the Cinderella story of J.T. O’Sullivan, Bruce is gonna surprise. You’ll see.

At halftime, that’s the Os Holes roster, put out there in a desperate plea for help from the RealFootball365 readership. Advice? Any sleeper wide receivers you can think of? How high should I draft a defense, keeping in mind that a horse darker than Sarah Palin is waiting in my cerebellum for the ‘DST’ spot and that I most likely will get who I want? And, most crucially, can anything save this team?

Ah, fantasy football season ... What exactly do we do with our time the other six months a year?

Training Camp: An entirely new kind of fantasy game!</i>">Training Camp: An entirely new kind of fantasy game!
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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