This is my first year taking part in the National Fantasy Football Championship.  I have played against some very tough competition before in the so called expert leagues, but there is nothing like a prize of $100,000 to make people stand up and pay attention.  In fact, the big prize probably makes the competition even tougher because so called experts like to take some risks just so they have something to write about.  People who are playing for money, they take it seriously.

 

Each League in the NFFC consists of 14 teams with 18-man rosters.  There is no trading allowed.  Each team has a $1,000 FAAB budget.  To prevent collusion, no trades are allowed.  The no trade rule makes for some interesting nuance, but is a requirement to keep people from cheating.

 

Here is what I have discovered in just seven weeks of play.

 

Synchronized Draft

The draft was more synchronized than the menstrual cycles of a co-ed dormitory.  Because you have only one minute to make a pick, you need to be highly organized and be paying attention at all times.  The most obvious way to keep up is to rank the players in order by projected points scored.  Sometimes someone will pick someone way out of order and you have to search through forty names in that position to find him and cross him off.

 

Well, that never happened in the NFFC.  If I had Ronnie Brown listed as the fifth running back, he was picked as the fifth running back.  If Andre Johnson was the twenty-first wide receiver, he was picked accordingly.  I spent a long time setting that draft order and I was happy to see people agreed with me.

 

When the draft was done, there were only thirteen players who were not picked within five places of where I had them listed and only seven players who were not on my list of players to draft.

 

Of the most common strategies, the pick three running backs with your first three picks was done by eight of fourteen teams. 

 

I was one of the six teams that didn’t follow that strategy.  I tried to mix it up a bit.  I picked 6^th, a pretty good place to pick in a serpentine draft.  I chose Peyton Manning with my first pick because he was the player I projected to score more points than anyone else.  Conventional Wisdom said that I should pick a running back, but I figured that I needed to standout if I was going to win as everyone else was following the same strategy.

 

Hording Players

I expected the combination of no trades and deep rosters would mean that teams would horde players.  That turned out to be very true.  There are teams with five or six running backs, so when I was missing one due to injuries and had a bye, there were no running backs available in the free agent pool.  I had to start both Falcon running backs Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood for week 5, because my other starter had a bye week.

 

However, the money makes people aggressive as well.  My opponents have dropped players on their bye weeks only to bid for them back the next week.

 

Aggressive FAAB

With so little talent in the free agent pool the FAAB bidding is very aggressive.  Green Bay Packer #3 running back Noah Herron sold for over $400!  With some injuries, I’ve been forced to look to the free agent pool to help me out.  CREATiVESPORTS writer, Brian Walton has an excellent description about FAAB Washing in last week’s NFFC Zone.

 

I’d like to add something he didn’t mention.  When you bid for free agents, you are allowed to make a near endless set of contingencies.  After losing out the first week, I’ve been using that system to compensate for the high cost of players.  I may not get the first guy I want, but I’ll have someone who will hopefully help me.

 

What I Did, Where I’m Going, What Would I Do…

As I said before, I decided to buck the trend and took QB Peyton Manning with my first pick, sixth overall.  In Chicago, that was the second earliest pick for someone other than a running back.  One team did pick him with the fourth pick.  I followed up with Warrick Dunn, Reuben Droughns, Todd Heap, Javon Walker, Laveranues Coles and the Ravens defense.

 

I started with two wins and was as high as 25^th overall, which was very exciting.  I lost in week three in a close match up.  Things got rough as expected during weeks four five and six as those were my bye week days.  Now all my bye days are pretty much done so I’m at full strength for the rest of the season.  I’ve dropped to 184^th, but should be climbing back up now that the bye weeks are over.

 

As I analyze what I did, the biggest mistake I made was selecting a tight end in the fourth round.  I expected the good tight ends to go early, but they did not.  I would be in a stronger position if I had selected a running back that round.  There were a couple of starters left.  I’m doing well at wide receiver despite selecting starting at the fifth round.

 

My selection of Adam Vinatieri is also questionable as he didn’t play for the first couple of weeks and I was forced to carry three kickers when my backup, Jeff Reed, had a bye.

 

The single biggest change I would make is my overall roster strategy.  I tried to balance my roster.  Need two quarterbacks?  Draft two quarterbacks.  Need two kickers?  Draft two kickers.  When I do this next year, I’m going to draft one quarterback, one kicker, one tight end and one defense and fill the roster with running backs and wide receivers and then drop players as necessary.  Any running back or wide receiver left in the 18^th round would be better than what is left in free agency in these skilled positions while I’m able to find quality fill ins in these other positions.